History
The company was founded in 2010 in Philadelphia by Neil Blumenthal, Andrew Hunt, David Gilboa, and Jeffrey Raider while they were MBA students at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.[7][8] Blumenthal, Hunt, Gilboa, and Raider received a $2,500 seed investment through the Venture Initiation Program and launched the company in February 2010.[9][10] That month, shortly after launching, the company was covered by Vogue.[11]
In May 2011, Warby Parker raised its first round of funding totaling $2.5 million. In September 2011, the company raised a Series A round of $12.5 million.[12] In September 2012, it raised a $37 million Series B round.[13] It raised an additional $4 million in February 2013 from American Express and Mickey Drexler.[14] In 2011, Warby Parker shipped more than 100,000 pairs of glasses and had 60 employees.[15] By the end of 2012, the company had grown to around 100 employees. In April 2015, the company raised $100 million in a funding round led by T. Rowe Price, valuing it at $1.2 billion.[16]
In 2017, the company opened a $16 million optical lab in Rockland County, New York, to oversee a portion of the manufacturing process instead of paying external labs. The lab has 34,000 square feet and employs 130 staff.[17][18]
For a limited time in 2016, in addition to eyeglasses, sunglasses, and contact lenses, Warby Parker sold monocles with prescription lenses.[19]
In March 2018, Warby Parker raised $75 million in Series E funding, making its total funding about $300 million.[20]
In August 2020, Warby Parker raised $245 million in a funding round that valued the company at $3 billion. The $245 million was a combination of a Series F round and a Series G round.[21][22]
On September 29, 2021, the company became a public company via a direct listing on the New York Stock Exchange.[23][24]
In October 2023, a federal appeals court ruled that the company's use of keyword 1-800 Contacts in search engine optimization to redirect search engine users to its website did not violate U.S. trademark law.[25]
Google announced its partnership with Warby Parker at Google I/O 2025 to develop AI-powered smart glasses based on the Android XR platform, supported by the Gemini AI assistant, investing up to $150 million in the initiative.[26][27]
