On demand salon and beauty platform Vyomo secures less than $2M funding from Rocket Internet

Complete online solution for beauty professionals and consumers Vyomo has raised less than $2 million in pre series A funding round from Berlin-based Rocket Internet. The company will likely use the funding towards expansion, marketing and hiring more talent across functions.

YourStory tried contacting Vyomo’s CEO, Abhinav Khare over phone but he was not reachable. Our email queries to Vyomo and Rocket Internet didn't elicit any response so far. According to YourStory’s sources, Abhinav and Aprameya A, an angel investor in the company have been scouting for this round in Singapore from some time.

Vyomo had so far amaseed over 50K app downloads of which close to 30 percent of downloaders are actually using the product. On the merchant side, it has registered more than 3000 salons and spas and 1,500 stylists across Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru.

This funding for Vyomo came after four months of it seed round. The company claims to have raised six crores in its seed round with participation from cricketing icon Yuvraj Singh, Aprameya and Qatar Investment Authority.

The brainchild of London Business School alumnus Abhinav Khare, Vyomo aims to create one-stop solution for consumers and beauty professionals to manage and grow their business through a smartphone.

YourStory’s take

On demand beauty space is getting significant traction this year. On the lines of Peppertap, Grofers, Localoye and Urbanpro, startups like Vyomo, Bigstylist and Stayglad want to grab the major pie of the beauty and salon segment.

The YouWeCan funded venture competes with Belita, Bulbul, BigStylist, VanityCube and Getlook. VanityCube had raised close to $250K from unnamed investors. Belita secured seed round from India Quotient in 2012 and Bengaluru based Stayglad raised undisclosed amount from Sahil Barua and Tracxn Labs.

At present the online beauty service space is estimated anywhere between $4 to 5 billion. This is a big opportunity for startups and with rise on demand phenomenon the space appears promising in overall hyperlocal space.