- Wedding e-commerce company Brideside announced that it raised $7 million in funding. This round of funding was led by Beringea
Chicago-based Brideside — a wedding e-commerce company that helps future brides find dresses for their weddings and outfits for their bridesmaids — announced it raised a $7 million round of funding. This round of funding was led by Beringea with participation from Sawdust Ventures and several others.
Including this round of funding, Brideside has raised over $13 million. And the company plans to use the funding to expand and enrich its digital experience.
Founded in 2014 by Nicole Staple and Sonali Lamba — who became friends while attending Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management — Brideside has showrooms in Chicago, Boston, New York City and Charlotte. And the company is also planning to enter a few more markets by the end of next year.
Staple and Lamba came up with the idea for Brideside while Lamba was planning her wedding in 2009, according to Built In Chicago. Lamba believed that the process of planning the wedding was a challenge and needed to be modernized. And Staple had expertise in tech venture capital.
So they decided to take a data-driven approach and launch a personalized digital experience for each client. After a bride signs up on the website, Brideside collects about 50 data points about her to personalize recommendations. And the bride gets connected with an in-house stylist.
With this round of funding, Brideside plans to hire key executives to join its team of about 100 people — of which 95% are women and 35% are women of color.
“The Brideside brand really stands for bringing women together to celebrate. And that means women of all sizes, colors, and ages,” said Staple via Built In Chicago. “We feel that the industry has really neglected a large population of women in the past and we’re looking to change that.”
