New funding and ad support aim to ease capital gaps for small wedding businesses
Updated
February 24, 2026 2:55 PM
Mannequins display white wedding dresses in a bridal shop window. PHOTO: ADOBE STOCK
The Knot Worldwide, a global wedding technology platform and vendor marketplace, has launched a new grant initiative aimed at small businesses in the wedding industry.
The company, which operates brands such as The Knot and WeddingWire, connects couples with wedding professionals and provides tools to help vendors grow. It says the new WeddingPro Grant Program is designed to address a persistent challenge in the sector: access to capital.
Under the program, up to US$500,000 will be distributed to U.S.-based wedding professionals who run small businesses. The support will come in the form of financial grants, advertising credits on WeddingPro and mentorship. Selected businesses will also receive access to education resources and community support through the company’s network.
The move comes at a time when many wedding businesses remain small and resource-constrained. According to the company’s State of the Vendor Report, more than half of wedding businesses employ fewer than ten people. Three in four professionals surveyed said adaptability is critical to long-term success, while flexible funding remains a barrier. The grant program is positioned as a response to that funding gap.
“Our mission at The Knot Worldwide is to help the nearly 900,000 small businesses on our global platforms get discovered through our centralized vendor marketplace as well as give them the tools and resources to grow their business,” said Raina Moskowitz, Chief Executive Officer, The Knot Worldwide. “We consistently hear from our wedding professionals that access to capital is a barrier to getting started in the industry. With our new WeddingPro Grant Program, we will provide access to both capital and critical support services such as mentorship and education that will enable small business owners to further grow and scale.”
The application window opens on February 23 and closes on March 27. Winners are expected to be notified by May 2026, subject to eligibility verification and compliance with the official rules.
The program is open to U.S. wedding professionals who operate small businesses, have been in business for at least six months, can demonstrate an active revenue stream and earn at least 50% of their revenue from weddings. Applicants must submit a short form and a video outlining their business and how they would use the grant funds over the next 12 to 24 months. They can choose whether they prefer a monetary grant or free advertising support on WeddingPro.
To execute the program, The Knot Worldwide has partnered with the Global Entrepreneurship Network, which works with entrepreneurs worldwide. The company says the initiative builds on earlier efforts to support vendors on its platform, which includes about 200,000 wedding professionals in the United States. Its impact will depend on how effectively the support reaches the businesses that need it most. The real measure will be whether it helps them achieve steady, sustainable growth.
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Sensing technology is facilitating the transition of drone delivery services from trial phases to regular daily operations.
Updated
January 23, 2026 10:41 AM
A quadcopter drone with package attached. PHOTO: FREEPIK
A new partnership between Hesai Technology, a LiDAR solutions company and Keeta Drone, an urban delivery platform under Meituan, offers a glimpse into how drone delivery is moving from experimentation to real-world scale.
Under the collaboration, Hesai will supply solid-state LiDAR sensors for Keeta’s next-generation delivery drones. The goal is to make everyday drone deliveries more reliable as they move from trials to routine operations. Keeta Drone operates in a challenging space—low-altitude urban airspace. Its drones deliver food, medicine and emergency supplies across cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Dubai. With more than 740,000 deliveries completed across 65 routes, the company has discontinued testing the concept. It is scaling it. For that scale to work, drones must be able to navigate crowded environments filled with buildings, trees, power lines and unpredictable conditions. This is where Hesai’s technology comes in.
Hesai’s solid-state LiDAR is integrated into Keeta's latest long-range delivery drones. LiDAR stands for Light Detection and Ranging. In simple terms, it is a sensing technology that helps machines understand their surroundings by sending out laser pulses and measuring how they bounce back. Unlike GPS, LiDAR does not rely solely on satellites to determine position. Instead, it gives drones a direct sense of their surroundings, helping them spot small but critical obstacles like wires or tree branches.
In a recent demonstration, Keeta Drone completed a nighttime flight using LiDAR-based navigation alone without relying on cameras or satellite positioning. This shows how the technology can support stable operations even when visibility is poor or GPS signals are limited.
The LiDAR system used in these drones is Hesai’s second-generation solid-state model known as FTX. Compared with earlier versions, the sensor offers higher resolution while being smaller and lighter—important considerations for airborne systems where weight and space are limited. The updated design also reduces integration complexity, making it easier to incorporate into commercial drone platforms. Large-scale production of the sensor is expected to begin in 2026.
From Hesai’s perspective, delivery drones are one of several forms robots are expected to take in the coming decades. Industry forecasts suggest robots will increasingly appear in many roles from industrial systems to service applications, with drones becoming a familiar part of urban infrastructure rather than a novelty.
For Keeta Drone, this improves safety and reliability. And for the broader industry, it signals that drone logistics is entering a more mature phase—one defined less by experimentation and more by dependable execution. Taken together, the partnership highlights a practical evolution in drone delivery.
As cities grow more complex, the question is no longer whether drones can fly but whether they can do so reliably, safely and at scale. At its core, this partnership is not about drones or sensors as products. It is about what it takes to make a complex system work quietly in real cities. As drone delivery moves out of pilot zones and into everyday use, reliability matters more than novelty.