INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Authors: JordanZola, a fast-growing company that invites newly engaged couples to register their guests, shop from 600 different brands, and
create customizable checklists, has itself received something a bit extravagant: $100 million in Series D funding.Earlier investor Comcast
Ventures led the round, which also included new investors NBCUniversal and Goldman Sachs Investment Partners
The five-year-old, New York-based, 110-person company has now raised $140 million altogether.We talked last night with founder and CEO
Shan-Lyn Ma to learn more
Ma is a former executive with the e-commerce companies Gilt Groupe and Chloe + Isabel who originally started Zola to reinvent the
traditional registry process but who now sees an opportunity to eventually address every need a young couple may have, from caterers to
Cuisinarts, to eventually, perhaps, even home mortgages
Our chat has been edited lightly for length.TC: You’re a decent size-company at this point
Is everyone in New YorkSM: The vast majority, though we also have a small number in Charlottesville, Virginia
Earlier this year, we acquired the assets of a small wedding startup that had shut down and brought some of that team into Zola.TC: Have you
made other acquisitions Will you now with this giant new roundSM: No, and it’s possible, but the bigger vision is to cater to couples from
the day they get engaged, into their first years of marriage
We’ll be using the funding to accelerate the product development of more wedding planning tools for couples, so we can be that go-to
destination.TC: How are people learning about ZolaSM: The biggest growth driver has been people who’ve gone to a wedding where Zola was
the registry that the couple used
One hundred and fifty people on average see the registry, and if those visitors believe it’s a better product, [they come to us, too]
It’s built-in virality.We also picked Comcast Ventures to be our lead investor because Comcast and [fellow investor] NBC are market
leaders in media with wide reach
They’ll help us with our marketing and awareness goals, which is a big opportunity and area of focus for us in the coming year.TC: How
many people have used the site to dateSM: More than 500,000 couples have used our wedding registry or else managed their guest list through
Zola.TC: Zola started as a wedding registry product
Now, it’s a full-fledged marketplace, connecting engaged couples to 600 brands and 60,000 products
Are you making a percentage off each saleSM: It’s more like a retail model
Couples can register for items or buy them for themselves; we sell to them at retail prices and buy at wholesale.TC: Are you buying these
products and housing themSM: No. We learned from our past experiences in other e-commerce [companies] the pitfalls and land mines, and Zola
was built to avoid those problems
We have virtually no inventory and we have virtually no returns, and those are the big reasons why e-commerce is such a tough business.TC:
Can you elaborateSM: We’ve built our in-house proprietary drop-ship platform that allows us to connect directly with brand partners to
offer their products on Zola
So when an order is placed, we are interfacing with the customer, but when it comes time to ship, we transmit that order to the brand’s
warehouse, and they ship directly to the customer.The reason returns are so low is because we built the registry in such a way that we give
couples flexibility to not ship something to themselves until they’re sure they want to receive it
We had the insight that couples don’t want to receive gifts until after they get back from honeymoon
That way, they can see what’s being given to them and do a virtual exchange through the platform if they like, as well as ship themselves
the things they definitely do want.TC: Are brands giving you a discount for promising to buy a certain amount of their products over the
course of a year Why do they let you pay wholesaleSM: We’re delivering to them a millennial audience and getting their brands in front of
couples just as they are deciding on their brand preferences for the rest of their lives
We also deliver a certain degree of predictability to them
We can forecast how much of each product they should expect to sell through Zola in a month’s timeTC: Will we ever see Zola-branded
productsSM: The only instances where it may make sense for us to develop our own product is if we see demand for something that we can’t
get through a brand.TC: I’ve heard you talk about going after the wedding market, which is a $100 billion market in revenue in the U.S
But you also talk about catering to the every need of couples who are just getting hitched
Does that mean connecting them to caterers and travel experiences and mortgagesSM: Our ambition is to serve couples on that journey, so all
of those things are top of mind, and we believe we can help them in unique ways because of the insights we [glean] thanks to our registries
and checklists and other wedding planning tools.TC: How do you weigh profitability versus growth Do have a timeline for the company to turn
profitable that you can shareSM: One of the big lessons our leadership has learned from past startups and e-commerce [companies] was to
build a sustainable business model — and one that can be healthfully profitable in a reasonable time frame.Right now, we’re investing
But we’re marching toward that goal where we are a huge company, serving companies across the entire wedding-planning journey, and have a
business that supports that mission
