Summer is the season when new graduates celebrate their accomplishments, families and friends fire up the grill for barbecues and weddings are in full swing. And three New York State women-owned digital businesses are at the center of many of those summer celebrations: Glossier, Rent the Runway and Zola.
These companies are adding to New York State’s fourth-in-the-nation ranking for women-owned tech businesses, a ranking that reflects the abundance of opportunities for female entrepreneurs in the Empire State. These opportunities are built on a foundation formed by New York’s many strengths, including a top tech talent pipeline, a diverse workforce and easy access to capital. The stats speak for themselves: New York ranks first in the Northeast for STEM graduates, is home to some of the most diverse counties in the country and is second in the nation for venture capital investment.
New York’s innovation ecosystem, including high-tech industry clusters that benefit from a strong STEM pipeline and build off each other, is generating successful businesses. Glossier and Rent the Runway show how this works – during the same week in March 2019, both reached “unicorn status” or a $1 billion valuation.
Launched in 2014, Glossier is a digitally-focused beauty brand known for its makeup and skin care products that come in instagrammable packaging. Last year, the company surpassed $100 million in sales. Founder and CEO Emily Weiss has said her idea for the company was inspired by “Into The Gloss,” a beauty blog she created in 2010 that draws 1.3 million monthly visitors and now links to the Glossier shopping site.
Glossier has since raised almost $200 million in venture capital funding and in 2017 was ranked among Fast Company’s “Top 50 Most Innovative Companies.” In April 2017, Glossier relocated to One SoHo Square in Manhattan in a major expansion of its headquarters, creating nearly 300 new jobs in technology, finance, marketing, operations and other core functions. Weiss has said she is “grateful for New York State's support in expanding our team in New York City. It’s where we’ve grown from a beauty blog to a beauty brand and built our community. We are incredibly excited to continue building a team in downtown New York City who will work to further Glossier's mission of empowering women to feel proud of who they are today.”
Rent the Runway’s co-founders, CEO Jennifer Hyman and Head of Business Development Jennifer Fleiss, met while earning their MBAs at Harvard University, where they brainstormed a business idea that would revolutionize the fashion industry: a way for women to dress up more affordably by renting, rather than buying, high-end clothing. The idea proved popular, with 100,000 people signing up on Rent the Runway’s launch day in 2009 and driving the company to become the $1 billion business it is today.
Rent the Runway has continued to grow ever since, expanding into casual wear and subscription-based services that have created the need for even more space and employees. After an initial 40,000 square-foot Manhattan expansion in 2015 that generated 100 new jobs, the company is expanding again in Brooklyn, this time creating 252 additional jobs. In March, Fortune cited Hyman as one of “fewer than 20 women at the helm of a private U.S. company valued at more than $1 billion.”
When Zola CEO and co-founder Shan-Lyn Ma launched her company in 2013, she disrupted the wedding industry. What started as an e-commerce gift registry website grew into a one-stop shop for all things wedding planning, including wedding website design, guest list management, planning check lists and more.
The company’s free suite of online tools radically reinvented the wedding planning experience and this past January through June, Zola once again revolutionized the industry, bringing its virtual wedding planning experience to life with the opening of its first brick-and-mortar store in New York City. At Zola’s pop-up location in Flatiron, customers were able to access in-person consulting services, a listening booth to plan wedding playlists and even a 3-D printer to create customized wedding cake toppers. With nearly $141 million in funding, Zola also announced plans this year to grow its headquarters in New York City with a new 30,000 square-foot space on the floor of 7 World Trade Center and plans to create 100 new high-paying, tech-focused jobs.
The success of these three companies not only reinforces New York’s commitment to diversity, highlights the state’s top tech talent and shows how women-owned tech businesses are growing – it also benefits New York State. Whether it’s skincare and beauty or fashion and wedding planning, women entrepreneurs continue to innovate and reinvent these industries, providing jobs for New Yorkers — in the summer and all year long.
