Beauty services platform StayGlad raises Series A fund from former CEO of Lakmé Lever

On demand beauty services platform StayGlad has bagged an undisclosed amount in Series A funding from Bessemer Venture Partners and Anil Chopra, former CEO of Lakmé Lever, according to a statement.

With this investment, Chopra also joins the board of StayGlad.

The start-up was founded earlier this year by three IIT Kharagpur graduates, Kavish Desai, Shashank Gupta and Prateek Jain, who were working with Flipkart, Adobe and Amazon respectively, prior to starting StayGlad.

“In a short period of time, we have been able to build a loyal customer base, which reflects in the 70 per cent repeat orders every month. We have been growing 20 per cent week on week, word of mouth and endorsement by our existing customers continued to be the biggest channel for consumer acquisition,” said Prateek Jain, CEO, StayGlad.

StayGlad provides beauty and styling services to the customers at the convenience of their home and at reasonable price points.

StayGlad claims that every beautician listed on its platform has 5-8 years of work experience and undergoes rigorous process and skill training before rendering final services. On the backend, the start-up continues to employ technology to scale operations at a rapid pace.

“The beauty services industry is huge and growing at a rate of over 20 per cent per annum. Most women, across age groups in SEC A & B, avail of beauty services at least once in 3 months across big cities and smaller towns. The online and convenience of having these services at home will be a big game changer,” Chopra said.

Earlier in June, the start-up raised an undisclosed amount in angel funding from a group of investors including Tracxn Labs and Sahil Barua, co-founder of Delhivery.

“Demand for beauty services is at an inflection point in India. Add to this the convenience of the service being delivered at home and it creates a large market opportunity. The category is synonymous with high order values, high gross margins and predictable customer repeats behaviour,” said Raghav Bahl, Vice President, Bessemer Venture Partner.

The beauty and wellness space in India is fast catching the fancy of investors. Recently, beauty and wellness start-up Stylofie raised $250,000 in seed funding from Hong Kong-based Swastika Company Ltd.

Earlier this month, Info Edge Ltd, the owner of recruitment portal Naukri, acquired 25 per cent stake in on-demand beauty services marketplace BigStylist for about $1 million.