Design-friendly online invitations and stationery startup Paperless Post has raised $6 million in funding from RRE Ventures, SV Angel, Tim Draper and others. This brings the startup’s total funding to $12 million. Previous investors include Ram Shiram and Mousse Partners.
The startup is sort of like the anti-Evite, aiming to allow consumers to create sleek, design-focused, personalized invitations that deliver the same quality as paper stationery. Users can send out invitations for any occasion and monitor as guests receive and reply to their invitations. The New York company was launched in 2009 by brother and sister team James and Alexa Hirschfeld.
The startup offers specialized invitations for specific types of parties (i.e. birthdays, weddings, bridal showers), as well as greetings for occasions (sympathy, birthday, congratulations).
Not all invitations and greeting cards on the site are free; Paperless Post recently rolled out premium designs as well (the platform previously was paid-only). The free product is more simple, explains James, with invitations delivered directly in the email without the trademark envelope opening. Paid invitations include more design value and other features.
James tellus is that he and Alexa started the company because they felt that there was a gap in the online invitation market for a more design-centric, personalized invitation experience. “There needed to be a platform that allowed self-expressions through design without advertising,” he says.
As for the future, the company, which has sent 60 million invitations over the past three years, will be providing more social toolsto enhance engagement between friends connecting over Paperless Post. Alexa explains, “We’re thinking a lot about receiver and what we can build for them.” This includes calendar integrations and more. The company is seeing 100 percent year over year growth.
And she says that the new funding will also be used to move the platform entirely to HTML5. Currently, 30 percent of Paperless Posts’s traffic is mobile.
Paperless Post faces competition from Punchbowl, Evite and others.