Yuvi-led YouWeCan Ventures makes maiden investment in yet to be launched beauty and wellness startup Vyomo
A yet to be launched mobile-centric beauty and wellness platform Vyomo has raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding from cricketing icon Yuvraj Singh among others. This is the first funding by Yuvraj’s recently floated startup fund YouWeCan Ventures.
The Vyomo mobile app for salons, spas and stylists will be available for both iOS and Android from May 2015. The customer app will be rolled out in July. Importantly, we don’t see Indian ventures raising seed funding sans proper launch, but Vyomo seems to be an exception.
The app for salons will provide professionals from the beauty industry an end to end salon management software that grows and simplifies their business by providing increased traffic, CRM, ERP, EPOS, performance management, booking management and online presence backed by state-of-art Data Analytics & Artificial Intelligence.
Explaining his excitement, Yuvraj Singh said, “We would like to support the empowerment of millions of beauty professionals and help them improve their lives, income and be part of their personal milestones.” He added, “Ultimately, we decided to invest in Vyomo based upon the execution capability of the team headed by MBAs from the London Business School, a truly great product and our belief in the vision of Vyomo -- that artificial intelligence and data analytics can simplify the lives of millions of Indians."
YouWeCan is a 50 crore seed fund that is created to empower young entrepreneurs on their journey to build brands and successful business ventures and improve people's lives.
The brainchild of the London Business School classmates Abhinav Khare and Poonam Marwah, Vyomo aims to create a complete solution for beauty professionals to manage and grow their business through a smartphone.
“Signing-up with YouWeCan Ventures for securing our seed funding is an important milestone for the company, and one which will allow us to scale and expand to meet the demands of our global users,” said Abhinav Khare, Founder & CEO of Vyomo.
According to a KPMG report, beauty and wellness industry in India will be $13 billion by 2017 and within MENA region it was $25.5 billion in 2014 as per the global market intelligence firm Euromonitor International.
“Vyomo will bring more than one million stylists on the platform by 2017 and improve their earnings by allowing millions of customers to instantly access and book a hassle free salon and spa experience,” added Abhinav.
“Our aim is to create a complete solution for beauty professionals to manage and grow their business through a smartphone, and customers to book appointments instantly through their mobile devices, and ultimately repeat the success story of tech startups within the cab industry,” he said.
The Dubai-based company competes with Mumbai-based Purplle and Nykka. Purplle secured over $5 million in its Series A round from IvyCap Ventures while Nykka raised $3.4 million (INR 20 crores) through private investors, including HNIs and NRIs to boost the expansion plans of the brand in the omni-channel retail space.
