SaaS-enabled marketplace startup Glamplus raises $700k in a Pre-Series A round from Blume Ventures, Ramakant Sharma (COO- Livspace) and participation from existing investors IPV. The funds raised will be utilised in vertical tech SAAS capabilities along with expansion of B2B marketplace business to scale to 10,000 partners and monthly revenues of Rs 5 crore/month by March 2022.
Glamplus is a SaaS-enabled curated B2B marketplace which helps and enables large, medium and small salons/spas to adopt technology and grow their businesses digitally. Glamplus has created a one-stop platform -salon CRM for managing customers, ERP for managing staff as well as enabled B2B marketplace compounded on SAAS platform parallelly allowing to run any type of promotional offers / communication with D2C audience.
Anirvan Chowdhury (Vice President, Investments - Blume Ventures) said, “We have a strong thesis on vertical SAAS-enabled marketplaces and believe that Glamplus has done a stellar job at solving a lot of friction in the workflow for salons/spas through their SaaS solution, which has enabled them to drive marketplace revenue at a rapid pace.”
How it works
Glamplus has an AI-based CRM platform, which enables salon/spa owners to manage their operations and services end to end through an online web or android mobile app. This has helped them improve the overall salon experience for their customers and staff, it said in a press statement.
Platform also allows to premiumize the salon owner's offering via B2B2C interaction to the end customer and also integrates scheduling appointments, generating digital invoices, offer promotional offers through Bulk SMS/Whatsapp & loyalty schemes for customers. The salon owner can track the efficiency of the stylists, monitor revenue generation on daily, weekly and monthly basis, inventory management of products and services offered by the salon.
Upsurge in beauty, wellness services
Mitesh Shah, Co-Founder, Inflection Point Ventures says, “With the rise in disposable income and more women joining workforce in tier 1 cities, beauty and wellness services have witnessed an upsurge. People are now more conscious about their appearance and are willing to spend. To cater to this rising need more efficiently, Glamplus has created an end-to-end B2B2C solution for salons, spas and gyms which will help them to run their operations smoothly. Since January 2021, the company has successfully tied up with 4000 partners and plans to grow faster in the coming year. The fast pace growth trajectory clearly shows the need for this solution in the emerging market and IPV looks forward to extending their support in their journey.”
Divyanshu Singh, Co-Founder & CEO, Glamplus says, “Salon/Spa beauty industry is highly fragmented despite presence of more than million plus salons in the country. We were clearly determined and destined to solve for this highly undeserved SMB market and creating moat around it by going vertically deep, has also been recognized by our marquee investors. The new funds will be utilised in enhancing tech capabilities, going deep in the marketplace segment and driving growth along with efficiency. Our solution will create a complete digital ecosystem for salons and spas and help transform their lives.”
According to the Indian Beauty & Hygiene Association (IBHA), the beauty and wellness market in India is expected to reach Rs 2,463.49 billion by 2024, expanding at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 18.40 percent during the 2019-2024 period. India caters more than 1 million registered with 30 percent over and above unregistered. Glamplus aims to move the $200 billion SMB-dominated offline economy to a well data-driven engagement platform followed by curated beauty order marketplace on SAAS platform.
