Bangalore-based Gomalon, a startup that lists wellness services, has acquired salon and spa booking portal, Bookmyspa, for about $1.8 Mn (INR 12 Cr). Gomalon plans to use Bookmyspa’s assets and user base to perk up consumer experiences in wellness industry.
As part of the deal, Sriharsha BK, founder of Bookmyspa, will head the product division to strengthen the process and bring new inventions in the product offering from Gomalon. “We wanted to scale further and needed a strong board guiding us on it. With Gomalon, it all fell in place,” said Sriharsha, whose startup operates in Bangalore and Hyderabad.
Founded in 2013 by Sriharsha, Bookmyspa, is an online wellness platform where users can book online appointments for spa, salon, ayurveda, reflexology & wellness centers. Users can also rate or review their favourite brand to get deals before booking. Basically, the firm takes care of personal wellbeing, grooming and fashion needs by providing a wide range of options in the wellness industry and scheduling appointments for its clients.
The key proprietary technologies and algorithms of Bookmyspa help synchronize customers, hairdressers, makeup artists and other salon staffs’ average wait time by over three times, resulting in a better consumer experience as well as optimization of salon operations.
Bookmyspa gets about 40 appointments a day and will continue to exist and take bookings for the next six months. As for Gomalon, this move will help them reach over 2000 vendors in Bangalore where it currently operates.
“The potential acquisition of Bookmyspa comes as wellness industry is still striving to grab the golden ring in online booking of wellness programs. This is due to the increasing number of consumers who now prefer to go online for their day to day requirements. This acquisition also exemplifies how Indian startups are gaining stature and awareness in the Internet space,” said Anil Kumar, founder-CEO at Gomalon.
India has over 300 Mn internet customers and the Indian ecommerce market is likely to be worth $102 Bn by 2020, according to a report by venture firm Morgan Stanley. The Indian ecommerce market is expected to get a substantial boost from the wellness industry which has picked up pace.
Welcome to Flash Feed, your essential source for breaking news and innovation from around the web – bite-sized and updated all day.
