Meet Pearl: The AI wedding planning platform aiming to go public

David's Bridal plans to spin off the AI wedding-planning platform Pearl into a separate public company. The company inked a nonbinding letter of intent to accomplish the spinoff by merging Pearl with K&F Growth Acquisition Corp. II (KFII), a special purpose acquisition company. The deal values Pearl at about $350M. The companies expect to close the deal in the first half of 2027.

The most unusual part of the structure is that Pearl, not the stores, would own the David's Bridal brand and intellectual property and license it back to the retail chain. The two companies would sign long-term commercial agreements, and David's Bridal would stay a major shareholder in Pearl. The new company would make money from advertising and media, vendor listings and subscriptions, commerce and marketplaces, and licensing and brand partnerships. Pearl projects more than 100% revenue growth in 2027 to over $85M, EBITDA margins above 30% in 2026, and no debt after the deal.

The contemplated separation is intended to create a focused and fast-growing operating model for Pearl and strengthen the David’s Bridal retail store business, improving the customer experience and thereby creating strategic benefits across physical and digital guest experiences. Pearl and David’s Bridal retail store business expect to execute long-term, commercial agreements and relationships aimed at driving additional growth across both businesses. David's Bridal CEO Kelly Cook is expected to become Pearl's CEO, and the retailer is searching for a new CEO for the stores. Elina Vilk, the current president and chief business officer, would become Pearl's president.

Pearl began as a project in early 2020, as part of an effort to improve the brand's customer service. David's Bridal ran a limited beta test in 2022 and launched "Pearl by David's" nationally in January 2023. At launch it already had more than 100K vendor listings, and couples could use it on the David's Bridal site, Pearl.com, or a mobile app. The first version offered checklists, registries, wedding websites, appointment booking, loyalty rewards, and vendor discounts, which put it up against The Knot. The launch came just months before the company's second bankruptcy filing in April 2023.

After the bankruptcy, Pearl became the center of the company's turnaround. Pearl Media Network, an advertising business that sells access to David's Bridal's customer data to wedding vendors and brands, launched at the end of 2024. In March 2025, Kelly Cook was named CEO and announced the "Aisle to Algorithm" strategy to turn David's Bridal into a lighter, digital-first company. Notably, the company says about 90% of U.S. brides engage with its ecosystem and that its digital content reaches about 30 million viewers a month.

Over the year, David's Bridal has been owned by May Department Stores (2000–05), Federated Department Stores (2005–06), private equity firm Leonard Green & Partners (2006–12), Clayton, Dubilier & Rice (2012–18), and Oaktree Capital Management (2018–23). The largest shareholder in David's Bridal currently is CION Investment Corporation (CION), which bought substantially all of David's Bridal's assets out of bankruptcy in July 2023. For the spinoff, CION has proposed a $25M anchor investment in the PIPE.