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Award-winning East Village bakery Izola serves up fresh b...
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May 13, 2025
The bakery partners with organizations that help people who were formerly incarcerated, recovering from addiction, or exp...
Investor Story
Featured Investors
Sabby Jonathan
Sabby Jonathan is a CPA and Certified in Financial Forensics who led Jonathan & Associates for 32 years. A former Mayor of Palm Desert, he brings deep finance, business and civic leadership experience—and is a repeat IZOLA investor.
"What first drew me to IZOLA was Jenny and Jeffrey’s belief that financial success and social conscience are not mutually exclusive. They have proven that conviction through disciplined execution, extraordinary hospitality and a company built with care. Their integrity has earned our confidence again and again—and is why we have invested in IZOLA several times."
Bobby Edelman · Angel Investor, San Diego
Bobby Edelman is a San Diego angel investor who has backed 170+ early-stage companies since 2019 and is a six-year member of NuFund Venture Group. At Marshall Industries, he grew the Computer Products Group from $0 to $300M and helped lead the company through its acquisition by Avnet.
"Since I first invested, I've watched Jeffrey and Jennifer turn IZOLA into one of San Diego's most beloved bakeries and a profitable, well-run business, and I believe their plan to grow beyond one location is a thoughtful one. Expansion carries real execution and investment risk, so read the Form C carefully, but I invested because of how they've met every challenge so far."
Disclosure: Bobby is an existing IZOLA investor and a personal friend of the founders. Bobby has provided this statement voluntarily, without compensation or other benefit. He has not independently audited IZOLA's financials or projections. His views are his own as of October 28, 2026, are not investment advice, and do not represent any organization he is affiliated with.
Team
Jeffrey Brown | Co-CEO - Hospitality, Growth & Story
Pulitzer Prize finalist and architect of IZOLA’s hospitality and storytelling engine. Jeffrey leads real estate, finance, capital strategy and the growth partnerships behind IZOLA’s next chapter.
Jennifer Chen | Co-CEO - Product, Systems & People
Super taster and operating architect behind IZOLA’s food, production systems and service model. Jenny leads product, people and Kaizen: every batch, process and destination must be better than the last.
Our Story
It started with 12 croissants and a basket.
When COVID hit during a trip to France, home suddenly felt very far away.
Back in San Diego, frightened and isolated, Jenny and Jeffrey began baking in the loft above their photography studio—not to build a company, but to create a little joy.
On June 10, 2020, they made 12 croissants and lowered them out the window in a basket.
Guests came back. They brought friends.
Twelve croissants became a bakery, and the bakery became a community.
What began as a small act of care grew into something larger.
The promise never changed: extraordinary food, served hot from the oven, with genuine human care.
Delivering that promise all day required reimagining how a bakery works.
The Product
Four days for a croissant worth driving for.
Great croissants depend on time. IZOLA’s four-day process combines careful lamination, Normandy butter and a true overnight rest to build flavor, structure and the shattering texture our guests love.
That same obsession with craft extends to our naturally leavened sourdough, made with a long fermentation for deeper flavor and character.
And we do something most bakeries don’t: we bake throughout the day, so guests experience our croissants and sourdough the way they were meant to be experienced—hot from the oven.
IzOS
Technology in service of delight.
IzOS is IZOLA’s proprietary bakery operating system. Connected to our point-of-sale and online ordering systems, it updates live inventory ~50,000 times each month as guests buy in-store and online.
IzOS turns real-time demand into serial-numbered tray-up orders for our dough team and precise bake schedules for our bakers. As trays come out of the oven, inventory updates automatically so our hospitality team knows exactly what’s available to sell.
The platform has reduced our processing times from 40+ seconds to under 3 seconds — coordinating hundreds of behind-the-scenes decisions so we can bake for the next 15 minutes and serve croissants hot from the oven.
Hospitality
We created a new hospitality category.
IZOLA sits between fine dining, artisan craft and quick service: handmade food and warm, high-touch hospitality delivered at high-volume speed—all served hot from the oven.
Fine dining rarely moves this fast.
Quick service rarely feels this human.
The Flagship
2025 was our first full calendar year at IZOLA's flagship location in Downtown San Diego: $3.1 million in revenue, $288K in operating income, $273K in net income, and $222K in operating cash flow—all audited. Every dollar of that revenue was generated by this single destination.
Placemaking
The flagship proved more than demand.
Guests return, bring friends and create ritual, vibrancy and community.
That devotion compounds: word of mouth brings new guests, visible demand supports pricing power, and developers see a placemaking partner—not merely a tenant.
That reputation produced a nearly turnkey second destination in a vibrant trade area, the opportunity to collaborate with a world-class ownership team, and unusually favorable occupancy economics.
Love becomes leverage.
Placemaking compounds into financial advantage.
IZOLA founders Jennifer Chen and Jeffrey Brown
Scaling Craft
The question is not whether IZOLA can grow. It's whether growth makes IZOLA better.
Kaizen—continuous improvement—governs how we grow. We won’t open another destination or bring IZOLA Main online unless the quality and guest experience improve.
Traditionally, each new bakery recreates the hardest part: the complex 4 day dough production process.
IZOLA Main centralizes that complexity in one purpose-built environment, where tighter control, repetition and shared learning can improve the dough while dramatically expanding capacity. Each destination stays focused on what guests experience: baking hot and delivering extraordinary hospitality.
Centralize the complexity. Improve the product. Protect the magic.
Izola Main
The machine wasn't the breakthrough. The process was.
Industrial lines are built for speed; artisan croissants depend on time. So we reengineered the automated process around the dough—slowing the line, splitting production into stages and restoring the critical overnight rest.
The result: dramatically more capacity, dramatically less labor—and the product gets better.
We didn’t change the croissant to fit the machine. We changed how the machine is used to protect the craft.
Platform Economics
Why IZOLA Main changes the company.
Main turns dough-making from a location-by-location constraint into shared infrastructure for growth. It centralizes specialized equipment and dough production, while each bakery focuses on baking and hospitality.
MORE PRODUCT TO SELL
IZOLA is routinely supply-constrained, leaving thousands of dollars in demand unserved on peak days because we run out of product—not guests. Main is designed to remove that bottleneck.
STRONGER ECONOMICS
At scale, our model projects dough-production cost declining from ~11% of revenue to 2.5% and food cost from ~20% to 16.5%—strengthening economics across every destination Main serves.
Management projections are estimates. Actual results may differ.
Growth Plan
One backbone. A destination-led plan.
Company-owned destinations come first, with each opening gated by product quality, leadership readiness, liquidity and performance. Each adds revenue and sends more volume through IZOLA Main—increasing utilization and spreading fixed costs across a larger base.
As the destination model matures, we can add select adjacent channels: grocery and regional direct-to-consumer. Products are par-baked at IZOLA, delivered, then finish-baked and served hot from the oven—preserving the IZOLA experience.
The ambition isn’t to put IZOLA everywhere. It’s to create more experiences people love—and make each one more IZOLA than the last.
Joy + Justice
Joy for our guests. Justice in how we build.
IZOLA was founded with a dual mission: create extraordinary moments of joy and build a company rooted in justice.
Justice is practical: washable serviceware, equal tip sharing, restorative-justice hiring and leadership development from within.
The company we build matters as much as the food we serve.
Use of Funds
Capital with a clear job.
This round widens IZOLA’s margin for error.
Additional capital helps build IZOLA Main, the next destinations, build the leadership capacity for multi-unit growth, develops new distribution channels, supports IZOLA Main’s energy resilience.
The more we raise, the faster we can move from strength—without cutting corners or requiring each preceding project to fully mature before beginning the next.
The round accelerates the seven-destination plan; it does not pre-fund every future opening. Later destinations may also use operating cash flow, landlord contributions, debt or future equity.
Investor Returns
One transparent hurdle.
The current unit price reflects a forward platform valuation. Investors are underwriting whether Sorrento Valley and IZOLA Main can turn one proven destination into the modeled seven-destination platform.
We model a 2× planning target—not 5×—five-year case. Under full-raise assumptions, 2× requires ~$87.1M of enterprise value. At 9× EBITDA, that requires ~$9.7M of EBITDA; our 2030 plan models ~$9.3M. At 8×, the plan models ~1.71× gross value; at 9×, ~1.92×.
These figures assume 15% future dilution, 3% exit costs and $500,000 net debt, before investor fees and taxes.
At a full raise, Jenny and Jeffrey retain ~76.7% combined ownership. Returns depend on execution and an actual liquidity event—not a quick flip.
No return or liquidity event is guaranteed. A total loss could occur.
What's Next
The experience is proven. The next chapter is underway.
IZOLA began with 12 croissants and a basket.
Today, IZOLA proves that extraordinary food, served hot from the oven with genuine human care, can become a powerful business.
Now we are building the operating system to bring that experience to more communities.
The product will improve.
The scale will change.
The promise will not.
Invest in IZOLA—and own a piece of the hospitality category we are building.
Financial Model
Test the investment, not just the highlights.
Audited history governs. The read-only IZOLA Investor Decision Tool separates audited results from management assumptions and presents the operating plan, downside case, raise levels, ownership, dilution and performance required for the modeled return.
OPEN THE LIVE INVESTOR DECISION TOOL →
Start with the first tab. Deeper supporting schedules follow.
Management projections, operating assumptions and illustrative returns are estimates, not guarantees.
Social Proof
Named Yelp’s #1 bakery in America
Yelp named IZOLA its #1 bakery in the U.S. in 2022. Today, 1,869 guests have given IZOLA five-star Google reviews. But the numbers tell only part of the story. Guests drive hours, return again and again, bring friends—and describe an experience that goes far beyond the food.
“THE BEST! NO NOTES! This place will ruin all other croissants for you… I’ve gotten multiple other people hooked on this place also, it really does that to you.”
— Kristine C., Yelp
“Service was amazing! The staff were welcoming, friendly, and quick. They checked on us frequently and made sure if we needed anything else / if we enjoyed our food.”
— Tanya H., Yelp
“This place has it all from the amazing staff to the ridiculously delicious croissants and sourdough… This is the type of place you come for a culinary experience… they are setting another level to the game.”
— Erik A., Yelp