World's Fastest Growing Beauty Booking Platform Shedul.com Raises $20 million Series B, Valuing the Company at $105 Million

LONDON, April 11, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Shedul.com, the world's fastest growing booking platform for salons and spas, announced today a Series B investment of $20 million, valuing the company at $105 million. The round was led by Partech, an investment firm with hubs in Paris, San Francisco, and Berlin, along with participation from Berlin-based Target Global, Dubai-based BECO Capital, and New York-based FJ Labs. Additionally, the round included personal investments from entrepreneur Niklas Östberg, Founder and CEO of Delivery Hero AG. The fundraise was oversubscribed with additional secondary transactions of $3 million. The Series B round brings the total amount raised by the London-headquartered company to $32 million to date.

Shedul.com is an intuitive, free SaaS-enabled marketplace that salons and spas around the world use to streamline their business operations. In just a few years since launch, the company has captured a vast customer base of merchants in more than 120 countries, mainly in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia and Canada. Recently, the company launched its consumer marketplace Fresha.com, which connects merchants using the free business software to consumers online. The marketplace unlocks revenue potential for merchants by leveraging the power of online bookings and automated marketing through mobile apps and integrations to Instagram, Facebook and Google.

Today, the company announced that a staggering 8 million appointments are booked on its platform each month, at a value of over $270 million and growing. Growth in active merchants is expanding at an average rate of 20% quarter-on-quarter, making Shedul.com the world's fastest growing beauty and wellness platform. In just a few years since launch, the platform is on track to process $6 billion worth of appointment bookings by the end of 2019.

The company's Co-Founders, William Zeqiri, and Nick Miller, shared how their strategy helped outpace conventional competitors to achieve hypergrowth. "Being customer-driven is ingrained into our team's core," explained CEO William Zeqiri. "Since day one, we have focused on solving major challenges to make our customers happy. We spend much time talking to our customers and acting on their feedback, enhancing our platform to suit their needs. That's how we've built an award-winning product that can sell itself."

"It's not only the quality of our product which gives an advantage, it's the unbeatable accessibility our platform offers customers," added Nick Miller, the company's Chief of Product. "The market is highly competitive, crowded with legacy software providers who charge excessive fees to simply access their products. We've re-invented the business model by offering our business software totally free of charge, and instead monetise online bookings made through our marketplace. This strategy helps us consolidate the industry, building up a vast global network of merchants for our marketplace. We solved the chicken and egg problem of reaching marketplace liquidity, letting us rapidly scale and monetise the network."

Ultimately, this unique approach of powering a global consumer marketplace with a free SaaS platform attracted Partech to lead the Series B investment. "We believe the founders have built an excellent product and demonstrated impressive growth since inception with their unique business model," explained Philippe Collombel, Co-Managing Partner of Partech. "They have a winning vision to deliver transformational change to the beauty and wellness industry, and we believe their strategy will propel them to become the largest booking platform for the multi-trillion dollar beauty market."

"We're ecstatic for Partech to join as our partner in supercharging growth of our platform," said Zeqiri, commenting on the Series B investment. "The beauty and wellness industry is at a tipping point transitioning to an online model, the new investment secures our forefront position in leading this global shift."

The company plans to use the investment to accelerate product development and support the ongoing worldwide rollout of its Fresha.com consumer marketplace.

For more information, visit  Shedul.com and Fresha.com, or download Fresha on the App Store and Google Play. Follow Shedul on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Crunchbase.

About Partech

Partech is a global investment firm with offices in San Francisco, Paris, Berlin and Dakar. They bring together capital, operational experience and strategic support for entrepreneurs at seed, venture and growth stages across multiple continents, with over $1.3B investment capacity. Investments range from $200K to $50M in a wide range of technologies and businesses for enterprises and consumers, from software, digital brands and services, to hardware and deep tech across all major industries. Companies backed by Partech have completed more than 20 initial public offerings and more than 50 strategic exits above $100M. More about Partech: https://www.partechpartners.com/

About Target Global

Target Global is an international Venture Capital firm headquartered in Berlin, with €600m in assets under management. Connecting the key European startup ecosystems we leverage the unique DNA of each of our target geographies, across our global network. Building on our experienced team with substantial operational and investment experience, we help exceptional entrepreneurs to build market leaders. Target Global follows a lifecycle approach, investing in fast-growing online platforms, targeting trillion $ markets. Our partners have been investing for more than 15 years in the digital technology space, backing some of the European success stories. The Target Global portfolio includes companies such as Auto1, Delivery Hero, GoEuro, Dreamlines and WeFox. More about Target Global: https://www.targetglobal.vc/

About BECO Capital 

BECO Capital is a Venture Capital firm that provides early stage growth capital and hands-on operational support for technology companies, founded by amazing entrepreneurs that are creating transformational solutions that solve large regional problems. Its team brings a rich and diverse experience in venture capital, technology, entrepreneurship and finance, triggering value creation across all the business and operational functions of portfolio companies. This includes helping them to expand to new markets across the region, acquire key talent, implement operational improvements, adopt corporate governance practices and raise further growth capital. https://becocapital.com/ 

About FJ Labs

FJ Labs is an investment firm that invests in and builds online marketplaces and e-commerce companies. Founded by serial entrepreneurs Fabrice Grinda and Jose Marin, FJ Labs has more than 250 active portfolio companies including Boxed, Delivery Hero, FanDuel, Flexport and LendingHome, and has been directly engaged in building companies such as AdoreMe, Instacarro, Letgo, OLX and Rebag. More about FJ Labs: https://www.fjlabs.com/

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