GlossGenius triples valuation, raises $25M to provide magnificence trade’s tech stack a makeover • TechCrunch

Danielle Cohen-Shohet developed a tech platform to assist spa, studio and salon trade homeowners handle their operations. She had seen firsthand the challenges of working a small enterprise as a contract make-up artist, one in every of her jobs whereas she was a pupil at Princeton.

So taught herself methods to code, launched in 2016, raised $2.8 million in pre-seed funding from Techstars and angel traders, and bootstrapped her firm, GlossGenius, for 5 years earlier than closing a $16.4 million spherical final November.

GlossGenius has over 40,000 clients within the magnificence and wellness house at this time and sees about $2 billion in annualized transaction quantity on its platform, CEO and founder Cohen-Shohet instructed TechCrunch in an interview. The platform goals to be a vertical software program “business-in-a-box” for magnificence professionals, a objective Cohen-Shohet has beforehand likened to what Toast did within the restaurant trade.

After seeing “triple-digit” year-over-year share income development since its final fundraise, GlossGenius has raised one other spherical of capital, in accordance with Cohen-Shohet. The New York-based startup nabbed $25 million in financing led by Imaginary Ventures and Bessemer Enterprise Companions, with participation from Left Lane Capital, which brings its whole funding to $44.2 million since its launch again in 2016.

Cohen-Shohet mentioned this newest spherical marks a 3x markup over the valuation the corporate earned in its November 2021 fundraise, and whereas she didn’t share the precise valuation quantity, she mentioned it’s within the “a whole bunch of hundreds of thousands” of {dollars}.

Over 70% of GlossGenius’s clients are girls and a good portion are underrepresented minorities, in accordance with Cohen-Shohet. That is partially a function of the trade — possession within the salon and spa house contains “greater than two occasions the non-public sector common relating to girls, African American and Asian enterprise homeowners,” Cohen-Shohet mentioned.

Serving to small companies run large operations is core to the corporate’s mission, Cohen-Shohet mentioned.

“Zooming out from a single buyer and this cloth we’re creating, it’s thrilling that we’re, in a roundabout way, an engine for financial mobility, for entrepreneurs from numerous backgrounds, and an engine for financial mobility for small companies that’s serving to them play on the identical degree taking part in area as bigger corporations,” Cohen-Shohet mentioned.

In a means, the pandemic turbocharged GlossGenius’s success. The platform automates many features of each the again workplace operations and the consumer expertise for its small enterprise clients, together with bookkeeping and funds, stock administration, on-line reserving and e-mail advertising and marketing.

“Put up-pandemic, one of many issues that turned very obvious is that small enterprise homeowners have been extra prepared than ever to embrace the promise of digitization,” Cohen-Shohet mentioned.

Buyer acquisition has largely occurred by way of word-of-mouth, as GlossGenius doesn’t have any devoted gross sales professionals on its crew at this time, in accordance with Cohen-Shohet. GlossGenius says that on common, its clients earn 25-100% extra income on account of utilizing its product.

The corporate plans to make use of the brand new funding to develop its worker base of 150 with a concentrate on engineering, product and design in addition to advertising and marketing, Cohen-Shohet mentioned. GlossGenius additionally plans to proceed investing in new product growth, notably for fintech features.

Cohen-Shohet mentioned the corporate has been “on a tear with product innovation” prior to now few months, noting GlossGenius has launched a “no-show safety stack” to assist homeowners scale back the variety of appointment cancellations they’re seeing in addition to a tap-to-pay embedded funds integration with Apple that enables workers to make use of cell telephones as {hardware} to course of transactions.

In the end, Cohen-Shohet’s objective is to construct a holistic, all-encompassing enterprise administration platform for small enterprise homeowners within the magnificence and wellness house.

“I believe the urge for food for freedom, flexibility and management amongst enterprise homeowners has by no means been greater,” Cohen-Shohet mentioned.