Mumbai-based beauty and wellness services marketplace startup, BigStylist.com, has raised $1 Mn in pre-Series A round of funding from Info Edge.
Founded by IIT Kharagpur graduates, Richa Singh, Chinmaya Sharma and Anurag Srivastava, BigStylist, is trying to revolutionise the way beauty and wellness services industry works in India.
With BigStylist, customers can place orders and get access to experienced stylists and beauticians through website, WhatsApp or recently launched Android app.
Chinmaya said, “Initially, we push the utilitarian services to our customers as it is easier to initiate a trial there. Once the customer has experienced us for the basic services, we find it easier to upgrade them to value-added services as well as convert them towards repeat customers.”
BigStylist claims that its average tickets size has gone from INR 1200 per customer to about INR 750 per customer, while serving more than 3000 customers in Mumbai since inception. The startup, presently, has a corporate team of 25 and about 200 beauticians in their network.
The beauty industry in India is currently close to $5 Bn, with services contributing to INR 200 Bn. It includes players like Vyomo that recently raised seed funding from Yuvraj Singh’s YouWeCan, Stayglad that had raised an undisclosed amount in angel round of funding from Tracxn Labs and few others. Also, Purplle, an online beauty and personal care site, which had raised Series A round of funding from IvyCap Ventures.
However, BigStylist distinguishes itself from other hyperlocal technology platform by their ability to work with only experienced professionals, and provide quick delivery of services as quick as an hour. They achieve this through their proprietary selection and interview methodology that ensures a low-cost and scalable model without physical investments in any academies or training institutes.
