Online Aggregator Of Budget Salons Glam Studios Raises $299K Angel Funding

Noida-based chain of standardised salons, Glam Studios has secured $299K (INR 2 Cr) angel funding from Pradeep Mirani and others.

Other investors who participated in the round included Aqeel Ahmed, Anand Ladsariya, Nitin Agarwal. The round was managed by I Plan Wealth Management.

The funding will be used for the company’s expansion, operations and technology. It also aims at acquiring over 500 salons by the end of the current financial year.

Incepted in October 2015 by Sadiya Naseem, Darakhshan Husain, Feeroz A Khan and Ajay Bansal, the startup creates a tech-driven chain of budget salons through aggregation, standardisation, and brand association.

Sadiya Naseem, founder and CEO, Glam Studios said, “We have received an incredibly encouraging response both from customers and salon owners and plan to have more than 500 salons on the tech-backed platform by the end of this financial year.”

Earlier this year, Glam Studios had raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding from former Rategain COO Aqeel Ahmed.

According to an official statement, the company claims to have served over 6000 clients and had secured 1000 yearly memberships in the first six months of its operations.

Salons can sign-up at Glam Studios without any capital expenditure. The company facilitates two-fold standardisation in the operational processes of salons that register themselves, firstly in infrastructure and rebranding and secondly in training the staff members. It also offers its CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software to partnering salons to fully automate the operations.

Glam Studios is also one of the four startups that will collectively receive $150K (INR 1 Cr) funding from online marketplace ShopClues, after winning the Next Big E-preneur Challenge event organised by the ecommerce platform.

The beauty and wellness segment has seen a surge in funding recently. In a bid to scale its beauty services brand AtHomeDiva, online classifieds portal Quikr acquired on-demand beauty, wellness and fitness app, ZapLuk. In June 2016, Mumbai-based beauty chain Enrich Salon acquired on-demand beauty platform Belita for an undisclosed amount. Prior to this in April 2016, salon chain Naturals invested $15 Mn in Vyomo and rebranded it as Naturals@Home. Other startups in this segment include Purplle, Zenoti, Mazkara, Stayglad, etc.