Press kit
Nestling
A local marketplace where New York families buy and sell secondhand baby and kids’ gear — free to list, no shipping, handed off in the neighborhood.
The story
A Meta and Capital One data scientist got tired of the chaos of buying and selling baby gear in Brooklyn — so she built the marketplace herself, solo.
The hook isn’t that another app launched. It’s that the secondhand baby gear economy in New York already exists — spread across Facebook Marketplace, Buy Nothing groups, building WhatsApp threads and parent listservs — and someone who spent fifteen years building integrity and fraud systems at scale decided to consolidate it.
Baby gear is expensive, used for a matter of months, and impossible to store in a New York apartment. So it circulates — but through a patchwork: you join the right WhatsApp group, or you scroll a general marketplace built for furniture and cars and hope a stroller surfaces.
Nestling is built for one category and one city. Listings are free, transactions happen locally with no shipping, and the whole product assumes buyer and seller live a few blocks apart.
The demand side
Boilerplate
Written to be quoted directly. Pick the length that fits.
One line
Nestling is a local marketplace for buying and selling secondhand baby and kids’ gear, built for New York parents.
Short — approx. 50 words
Nestling is a local marketplace where New York families buy and sell gently used baby and kids’ gear. Unlike general marketplaces, it’s built for one category and one city: listings are free, there’s no shipping, and handoffs happen in the neighborhood. Founded and built by Brooklyn parent Ali Fenichel McMillan.
Long — approx. 100 words
Nestling is a local marketplace for secondhand baby and kids’ gear, serving New York families. Baby equipment is expensive, outgrown within months, and impossible to store in a city apartment — so it already circulates through Facebook groups, Buy Nothing threads and building chats. Nestling consolidates that into one place built for the category: free listings, no shipping, local pickup, and a “wanted” board where buyers post what they’re looking for so sellers know there’s demand before they list. It was founded and built single-handedly by Ali Fenichel McMillan, a Brooklyn mother of two and former Meta and Capital One data scientist. The marketplace launched in June 2026.
By the numbers
Direct counts from Nestling’s production database on 7 August 2026, roughly two months after launch. Nothing here is estimated, projected or annualized, and any of it can be re-run on request.
Founder
“After my first baby I knew I wanted a second and had to hang onto or temporarily lend out gear to friends just to get it out of the house. With my second baby I couldn’t wait to get rid of all the baby gear I knew he’d outgrow quickly. None of the marketplaces that existed felt fit for purpose. That’s why I started Nestling.”
Ali Fenichel McMillan, founder and CEO
Ali Fenichel McMillan is the founder and CEO of Nestling, which she designed and built on her own. She has lived in New York since 2011 and in Brooklyn with her two sons, and came to the idea through her own parenting network — the neighborhood groups and group chats where this gear already changes hands.
She spent fifteen years as a data scientist in online media and fintech. Most recently she was a Data Science Manager at Meta, where she ran the Paid Content Integrity team, cutting harmful-ad prevalence and running experiments that protected $30M in legitimate revenue from over-enforcement. Before that she spent eight years at Capital One as a Data Science Director, building predictive models on card transaction data along with spend controls and virtual payment systems, and leading the data platform integration for the Discover acquisition. Earlier in her career she was a data scientist at AOL and The Huffington Post.
She holds an MS in Data Science from Columbia University and a BA in Mathematics from Washington University in St. Louis, and holds a dozen U.S. patents, including patents for AI-based verification systems.
What’s different
- One category, done properly. Filters, sizes and categories are built for baby gear — clothing by age, car seats by type, strollers by brand — rather than bolted onto a general classifieds taxonomy.
- Local by construction. No shipping and no national inventory. Listings are ranked by distance, and the product is organized around neighborhoods.
- A demand side, not just supply. Buyers post what they're looking for, so a parent with a stroller in the closet can see that someone nearby already wants it before deciding to list.
- Free to list. No listing fees.
- Identity checks before contact. Both sides verify a phone number and add a profile photo before they can message or make an offer — deliberately more friction than a general marketplace, because the transaction ends with a stranger at your door.
- Rentals as well as sales. Gear used for a matter of weeks — bassinets, travel cots — can be lent rather than sold.
Screenshots
Captured from the live site on 7 August 2026. Free to use with credit to Nestling.
Product facts
- Website
- nestlingmarketplace.com
- Marketplace launched
- June 2026
- iOS app
- Nestling Marketplace — free on the App Store, released 26 July 2026
- Platforms
- Web and iOS
- Cost to sellers
- Free to list
- Fulfilment
- Local handoff; optional courier delivery within the city
- Payments
- In-app card payments with seller payouts, or cash at handoff
- Categories
- Strollers, car seats, cribs and nursery, carriers, clothing, toys, feeding, bathing, diapering
- Team
- Built solo by the founder
- Coverage
- New York City, concentrated in brownstone Brooklyn
Press contact
Ali Fenichel McMillan, Founder & CEO
Get in touch →
Every figure on this page is a direct count from Nestling’s production database on the date shown. Nothing is estimated, projected or annualized.