Who Owns Brilliant Earth?

Beth Gerstein and Eric Grossberg founded the company in 2005 in San Francisco, building it around a specific market gap: engagement ring buyers who wanted documentation that their diamonds were not conflict stones. The Kimberley Process existed by then, but no major US retailer was selling verified ethical sourcing as its central proposition rather than a footnote.

The model was online-first at a time when fine jewelry was still a showroom business. Customers designed rings on the site, chose center stones from a database, and had pieces made to order. Early sourcing emphasized Canadian mined diamonds, recycled precious metals, and later lab-grown stones as that category matured.

Physical retail followed slowly: appointment-based showrooms rather than mall stores, expanding to roughly 40 locations across US cities by the mid-2020s while keeping the digital purchase path dominant.

The September 2021 IPO on Nasdaq priced at $12 per share and gave the company public capital to fund showroom growth and the move beyond bridal. Lab-grown diamonds became an increasingly large share of assortment as prices for lab stones fell, pressuring average order values but expanding the customer base.

The strategic story through 2025 and 2026 was diversification: fine jewelry (non-bridal) grew to 16% of bookings by Q3 2026, and wedding and anniversary band bookings hit record levels. Q3 2026 results reported net sales of $112.8 million, a gross margin of 59.7%, net income of $2.4 million, and adjusted EBITDA of $5.1 million, with trailing-twelve-month revenue of about $452 million.

The made-to-order model shapes the customer experience and the economics together. A buyer selects a center stone from a live database, pairs it with a setting, and the ring is manufactured after purchase rather than pulled from stock. That keeps inventory capital low and lets the assortment be effectively infinite compared to a mall jeweler's case.

Showrooms function as consultation points rather than stockrooms. There is no pressure inventory to move and no commissioned-case selling; the appointment exists to convert the online consideration into a purchase, which is why the company can run roughly 40 locations at a fraction of a mall chain's selling cost.