Ruby Ribbon raises $7.5 mln

Burlingame, Calif.-based Ruby Rib­bon Inc has raised $7.5 mil­lion in a Series C round of fund­ing. The financ­ing was co-led by DBL Part­ners and Direct Sell­ing Cap­i­tal. Pre­vi­ous investors Trin­i­ty Ven­tures and Mohr Davi­d­ow Ven­tures also par­tic­i­pat­ed in the round. Ruby Rib­bon, which sells shapewear and women’s cloth­ing online, pre­vi­ous­ly raised $11.8 mil­lion. With the lat­est fund­ing, Norm Matthews, for­mer pres­i­dent of Fed­er­at­ed Depart­ment Stores, and Cyn­thia Ringo of DBL Part­ners, have joined the board.

PRESS RELEASE

Ruby Rib­bon Announces $7.5 Mil­lion Series C Funding

New Board Mem­bers and Advi­sors Add Strate­gic Heft to Company’s Quest to Re-invent Tra­di­tion­al Retail

Burlingame, Calif. – Ruby Rib­bon, Inc. (RubyRib​bon​.com) today announced that the com­pa­ny has closed $7.5 Mil­lion in Series C Fund­ing. The Round was co-led by DBL Part­ners, of San Fran­cis­co, CA, and Direct Sell­ing Cap­i­tal of Dal­las, Texas, and includ­ed par­tic­i­pa­tion from cur­rent investors Trin­i­ty Ven­tures and Mohr Davi­d­ow Ventures.With the clos­ing of the round, the com­pa­ny will add two board mem­bers, Norm Matthews, for­mer Pres­i­dent of Fed­er­at­ed Depart­ment Stores, and Cyn­thia Ringo of DBL Part­ners. Joey Carter, the founder of Direct Sell­ing Cap­i­tal, will become an Advisor.

The new investors, advi­sors and board mem­bers col­lec­tive­ly bring to Ruby Rib­bon deep exper­tise in areas core to the company’s suc­cess as well as an invest­ment cir­cle in tune with the company’s mis­sion to cre­ate thou­sands of flex­i­ble jobs for women while demon­strat­ing sus­tain­able and high­ly scal­able modes of retail.

Ruby Rib­bon is an appar­el com­pa­ny cre­at­ing a pow­er­ful brand, thou­sands of jobs for women and a fanat­i­cal cus­tomer base by offer­ing tech­nol­o­gy-pow­ered entre­pre­neurs the oppor­tu­ni­ty to sell its prod­ucts through pop-up and vir­tu­al retail events. Joey Carter of Direct Sell­ing Cap­i­tal was for­mer­ly the CEO of the bil­lion-dol­lar home dec­o­rat­ing com­pa­ny Home Inte­ri­ors and Gifts is a for­mer Pres­i­dent of the Direct Sales Asso­ci­a­tion and brings deep exper­tise in man­ag­ing a sales force of inde­pen­dent con­trac­tors. Norm Matthews has more than three decades of expe­ri­ence in retail, includ­ing serv­ing as Pres­i­dent of Fed­er­at­ed Depart­ment Stores. He cur­rent­ly sits on the boards of ThredUP Inc., Children’s Place, Spec­trum Brands, Hen­ry Schein and Par­ty City. DBL Part­ners focus­es on top-tier com­pa­nies that bring in high returns while cre­at­ing social impact. Past DBL Part­ners invest­ments include Solar City, Inc, Tes­la Motors, and The RealReal.

“DBL Part­ners iden­ti­fied in Ruby Rib­bon the com­bi­na­tion of impres­sive busi­ness results and deep social com­mit­ment that are the hall­mark of our invest­ments,” said Cyn­thia Ringo, Gen­er­al Partner.

Ruby Rib­bon will use the addi­tion­al fund­ing to con­tin­ue its nation-wide expan­sion. The com­pa­ny now has over 1000 inde­pen­dent styl­ists rep­re­sent­ing it in 48 states. The new raise will fund the build-out of addi­tion­al tech­nol­o­gy to ser­vice the styl­ist base, an increase in train­ing tools for the styl­ists and invest­ments in mar­ket­ing and brand aware­ness. The company’s unique prod­uct line includes its award-win­ning shapewear, essen­tials with shap­ing (pants, leg­gings, skirts and dress­es with shap­ing built-in), and fash­ion lay­ers. Because inde­pen­dent styl­ists offer cus­tomers high-touch ser­vice focused on edu­ca­tion and tri­al, the com­pa­ny has phe­nom­e­nal repeat pur­chase rates (nine out of 10 cus­tomers plan to pur­chase again) and very low return rates.

“Ruby Rib­bon plans to be the largest appar­el com­pa­ny using an inde­pen­dent direct sales force. The new investors and board mem­bers will bring exper­tise and insight that help us attain this goal,” said CEO Anna Zornosa.

Matthews and Ringo join the exist­ing Ruby Rib­bon board which includes Patri­cia Nakache of Trin­i­ty Ven­tures and Kather­ine Barr of Mohr Davidow.

ABOUT RUBY RIBBON

Ruby Rib­bon is a shapewear and fash­ion com­pa­ny that sells it prod­ucts exclu­sive­ly through its social com­merce net­work of Styl­ists. True to its mis­sion of cel­e­brat­ing con­fi­dence inside and out, Ruby Ribbon’s award-win­ning shapewear and flat­ter­ing fash­ion give an instant boost to women the minute they put them on. Ruby Rib­bon sup­ports female entre­pre­neur­ship by pro­vid­ing women with the oppor­tu­ni­ty to start their own social com­merce busi­ness­es as Ruby Rib­bon Stylists