Fresha, a marketplace platform for beauty and wellness, announced it has secured a €27.8 million venture debt facility from J.P. Morgan. This funding will accelerate Fresha’s expansion into new markets and drive the growth of its machine learning capabilities and AI-powered robotics, further advancing its platform.
To date, Fresha has raised over $185 million in VC funding, including a $150 million Series C round in 2021 led by General Atlantic. As Fresha approaches profitability, this new relationship with J.P. Morgan will further fuel its ambitions to revolutionise the beauty and wellness space, according to its founders.
Streamlining beauty
Fresha’s platform empowers beauty businesses, such as salons, barbershops, spas, and aesthetics clinics, to operate efficiently and independently. By offering subscription-free business software with embedded payment processing and a consumer marketplace, Fresha helps businesses streamline their entire operations and connect with more customers, levelling the playing field for businesses of all sizes.
Also, Fresha’s platform allows consumers to discover, book, and pay for beauty and wellness appointments with local businesses through its marketplace. Beauty and wellness professionals’ benefit from an all-in-one platform that includes free business software and financial technology solutions to manage their operations seamlessly.
William Zeqiri, Founder and CEO of Fresha, said: “The beauty and wellness industry is a dynamic world, buzzing with creativity, innovation, and an endless quest for service enhancement. Today, there is so much potential to be unlocked. Beauty service providers need a 360-degree view of each client, including booking behaviour, preferences, payment methods, and lifetime value. Extracting insights from every transaction has become a key competitive advantage, allowing our users to offer highly tailored and personalized services.”
International footprint
Fresha boasts a network of over 110,000 merchants, with a strong presence in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Europe. The platform’s reach extends across 120 countries, where customers book tens of millions of appointments monthly. To date, Fresha has facilitated transactions worth over $35 billion in gross merchandise volume, showcasing its significant impact on the global beauty and wellness industry. In 2023, the company grew revenues by 67% year-over-year, with a similar level of performance expected in 2024.
“We’re delighted to support Fresha on their continued growth journey,” added Alexandra Wyatt, U.K. Innovation Economy banking at J.P. Morgan. “Fresha is steering the rapidly expanding beauty and wellness space with its innovative technology and strong unit economics. Their unique business model is transforming the industry landscape, and it’s precisely the type of innovation we want to help drive globally.”
Read the orginal article: https://www.eu-startups.com/2024/08/london-based-fresha-gets-e27-8-million-in-venture-debt-to-add-machine-learning-to-its-beauty-marketplace/
