- Babylist just raised a $40 million Series C led by Norwest Venture Partners.
- The company is known for its online registry product and pregnancy-related content.
- See the pitch deck that helped the startup land its biggest round of funding to date.
Babylist, the digital platform that specializes in online baby registries and pregnancy-related content, just raised a $40 million Series C led by Norwest Venture Partners.
Sonya Brown, a general partner at Norwest, is also joining Babylist’s board effective immediately. Halogen Ventures, 500 Global, Next Play Capital, and Jay-Z’s Marcy Venture Partners additionally contributed to the round.
Founded in 2011, Babylist has grown while raising relatively little venture capital. The latest round brought its total amount raised to $50 million.
Natalie Gordon, Babylist’s founder and CEO, said the company decided to raise a fresh round of funding this fall because it would help to accelerate its plans for growth over the next decade, including expanding internationally and creating an in-person brand experience.
Since it had been a few years since the company raised venture funding, Babylist took it as an opportunity to relearn how to tell the company’s story to potential investors, Gordon said. The company last raised venture capital in 2018. Gordon said the dynamics had changed a bit since the last time she pitched investors.
“We pitched a lot of women, and we pitched a lot of women who had used Babylist,” Gordon said of the Series C round. “And it felt actually very distinct, I would say, from even three, four years ago.”
Babylist is profitable and on track to reach $250 million in annual revenue for 2021.
“Some investors we talked to did not even know what to do with us being profitable,” Gordon said. “It just didn’t fit with businesses that they look at normally.”
Babylist generates revenue in different ways. Users can purchase items directly from its site, including products that Babylist develops itself. Babylist also earns revenue by allowing users to build registries from multiple retailers in one place, thanks to partnerships with stores such as Target, Walmart, Amazon, and Pottery Barn. Lastly, it has an advertising business that is driven by its baby-focused content operation.
Gordon said the company’s goals included launching internationally, developing more products, and building a physical presence for the Babylist brand. She said Babylist planned to launch a handful of pop-up experiences in 2022, starting in Los Angeles.
Hiring was also a part of the plan. Babylist has 110 employees. Before she founded Babylist, Gordon was a software engineer at Amazon, an experience she said taught her important lessons about what a strong engineering organization looks like.
Gordon said her goal was for Babylist to become “the generational company for consumers going through this life stage — and not just the new parents, but the whole family that are all supporting them.”
Check out the pitch deck that Babylist used to raise its $40 million Series C.
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