David's Bridal Plans to Spin Off AI Platform Pearl as a Public Company by 2027
Key Takeaways
- •David's Bridal intends to spin off its AI wedding planning platform Pearl into a publicly traded company by 2027.
- •Pearl consists of Pearl Planner, which helps couples with budgeting, vendor matching, and more than 300 planning tasks, and Pearl Connect, a vendor-facing platform that launched on September 16, 2026 with pricing starting at $49 per month.
- •Pearl Planner surpassed 110,000 users within nine months of entering public beta in 2025, achieving that growth without paid marketing spending.
- •The platform is built on 75 years of proprietary wedding data accumulated through David's Bridal's history in bridal retail.
- •David's Bridal was acquired by CION Investment Corp. for $20 million after emerging from Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2023 and is now pursuing a technology-first strategy under CEO Kelly Cook.
David's Bridal, the retailer long known for racks of white gowns and fitting-room tears, plans to take its artificial intelligence platform public. According to CNBC, the company intends to spin off Pearl into a publicly traded company by 2027.
What Pearl Actually Is
Pearl is the name David's Bridal has given to its AI-driven wedding planning ecosystem. The company has organized the platform around two main products, one for each side of the wedding economy.
The first, Pearl Planner, is built for couples. It handles budgeting, vendor matching, and task management, and it tracks more than 300 separate wedding planning tasks.
The second, Pearl Connect, is aimed at wedding vendors such as photographers, florists, and venues. It launched on September 16, 2026, as a dual-sided platform that links vendors with couples, and its tiered pricing begins at $49 per month, giving Pearl a direct subscription revenue stream on the vendor side of its marketplace.
The pitch rests on data. David's Bridal says Pearl draws on 75 years of proprietary wedding information collected over the company's long history in bridal retail — the raw material behind its budgeting, matching, and planning features.
The Early Numbers
Pearl Planner entered public beta in 2025. Within nine months, it had attracted more than 110,000 users. The company reached that figure without spending on paid marketing. Users spend an average of six minutes per session on the planner — the traction record Pearl now carries toward its planned public listing.
From Bankruptcy to Algorithm
David's Bridal emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2023 and was acquired by CION Investment Corp. for $20 million.
Under CEO Kelly Cook and President and Chief Business Officer Elina Vilk, the company has pursued what it calls its “Aisle to Algorithm” strategy. The goal is to shift David's Bridal from an inventory-heavy retailer into a technology-first wedding platform that blends retail with an AI-powered marketplace.
The planned spinoff is the most concrete expression of that strategy so far: a business bought out of bankruptcy for $20 million now intends to send its technology platform to the public markets by 2027.
What to Watch
The key things to watch over the next year are Pearl's user growth beyond its beta numbers, early traction for Pearl Connect among vendors, and any concrete details on how and where the spinoff would be structured.
