EBY

EBY is an American underwear label co-founded by actress Sofia Vergara and social entrepreneur Renata Black, and it began taking orders in late September 2017 as a subscription service for seamless panties. The three letters are the initials of a company motto that credits the shopper with paying for each loan. Ten percent of net sales go to the Seven Bar Foundation, a New York nonprofit that funds small loans for women who want to start or grow a business.

Trade reports from 2021 give 2018 as the company's founding year, which probably reflects when the business was formally set up. The shop at join-eby.com was live well before that, and the launch was covered by TechCrunch and The Hollywood Reporter in September 2017.

Lingerie as a fundraising tool, before EBY existed

The underwear came last. The charity came first, and it had been using lingerie to raise money for years.

Renata Black chairs the Seven Bar Foundation, a 501(c)(3) based in New York that describes itself as a social enterprise using the luxury lingerie industry to pay for microfinance. Before it, she had worked on poverty projects in a dozen countries, including relief work in India after the 2004 tsunami, and in 2007 she set up Earth Aid India, a village banking scheme that placed about 800 women in lending groups.

The foundation's method was the runway show. On 7 February 2009 it staged Lingerie Miami at Vizcaya, the 1910s waterfront estate in Miami, with collections from Agent Provocateur, Fifi Chachnil and Carine Gilson. Eva Longoria hosted. The night raised more than $180,000, enough for microloans to 2,233 women. In October 2010 the format moved to Cipriani 42nd Street as Lingerie New York, and the host that evening was Sofia Vergara. It raised over $200,000.

That is where the partnership began. In 2012 Black launched a lingerie line under the same three-word name, which gave 20 percent of each sale to microfinance. EBY is the second, more commercial attempt at the same idea, with a famous co-founder and a cheaper product.

The foundation's logo is a set of pink bars arranged as a ladder, taken from Maimonides' "golden ladder" of charity, in which the highest rung is helping someone become self-sufficient.

Three pairs for $48: the 2017 subscription

At launch EBY sold one thing, delivered on a schedule. Members chose thongs, cheekies, briefs or a mix, picked neutrals, solid colors or prints, and received three pairs every three months for $48, which works out at $16 a pair. Monthly and bi-monthly plans followed. Sizes ran from XS to 4X.

The pitch to investors and press placed the product between two price points: better than a $9 high-street pair, cheaper than a $22 designer one. Vergara's own line in the launch coverage was about convenience, that nobody needed to leave the house to buy underwear any more.

The charity side was spelled out in numbers. Seven Bar's microloans ranged from about $80 to $2,600, and as each borrower repaid, the money was lent again to another woman.

No-slip-grip and the seamless panty

The product claim that set EBY apart from other subscription underwear was a patented flocking treatment the company calls "no-slip-grip." A soft, slightly textured finish on the inside edges is meant to hold the garment in place so it does not ride up or slide down, without a silicone band or a tight elastic.

The garments themselves are knitted without bulky side seams, in the smooth style most brands now sell as the seamless brief, which leaves little or no line under fitted clothes. The range covered the thong, brief, G-string, bikini and boyshort, and later added bralettes and other bra styles.

The $6 million Series A in 2021

In late August 2021 EBY announced a $6 million Series A round led by Colt Ventures of Dallas, with Azure Capital and several individual investors, among them Ulta Beauty chairman Robert DiRomualdo, former Yahoo finance chief Ken Goldman and former New York Stock Exchange chief executive Duncan Niederauer.

At that point the New York-based company said it had passed 10,000 five-star customer reviews in under three years. The money was earmarked for a chief operating officer, influencer marketing, product development and e-commerce sites in Canada and the UK. The product plans named a limited Seamless Luxe collection priced between $21 and $69, period underwear and a mesh range.

The 10 percent donation to Seven Bar remained part of the model in the 2021 announcement, the same figure promised in 2017.

Last updated October 7, 2026