Cluj-based Stailer, a marketplace for the beauty niche, has raised €1M in a new bridge investment led by angel investor Cosmin Tirvuloiu. One year after the launch, the tech startup has raised over €2M.
Stailer is working on building an online booking platform for beauty salons and professionals. They offer users the possibility of choosing between specialists and booking an appointment fast, whenever they want. For the B2B target, the team has developed a digital platform to showcase their services and automate scheduling management.
This investment will be used to scale up the beauty marketplace. Stailer is looking to consolidate its market position and grow in all the Romanian cities, followed by international growth in Budapest, Hungary, and Istanbul, Turkey.
“Loosening restrictions and the prospect that the pandemic has passed creates a high demand on the market. In this context, digitization will help consumers identify beauty service providers, check availability, and pricing, as well as make online appointments,” Andrei Ursachi, CEO and co-founder of Stailer, shared.
Stailer was founded by Andrei Ursachi at the end of 2020 in the middle of the pandemic. He has a background in law and over a decade of experience in scaling companies. With an avid eye for recognizing market trends, and after having to close all his businesses, he conducted market research and decided to tackle the beauty industry, “a blue ocean in CEE”, as he called it.
In the past year, the tech startup has seen 50 new salons listed weekly on the platform, while B2B clients report 30K additional monthly customers. In terms of business, salons are charged €1 for new customers, which aims to lower their costs and raise revenues.
“My focus is on product and market fit, acquisitions funnels, retention, and funding. Velocity and revenue are the most important KPIs. It’s going to be a big year for Stailer. Globally, in all industries, on-demand is being enabled for consumers via technology,” says Andrei.
This type of solution has been witnessed internationally, similar to other industries, like tourism. While beauty businesses might be using their platform, joining one will help them grow faster, make booking accessible, and have access to each other’s clientele.
Another similar Romanian market player is Mero. The Bucharest-based hair and beauty marketplace was launched in 2017 and has received a €500K investment so far. They have closed 2021 with €100K in revenue and are looking to add more professionals to their platform.
The future of beauty salons in Romania
When it comes to the B2B target, in 2020, there were over 7000 beauty salons in Romania, and over 40K beauty specialists, with numbers on the rise. Most of the businesses have an occupancy level of 70% and they need to get as close as possible to full occupancy.
On the B2C side, in 2018, around 10M Romanians were living in urban areas. Half of them went at least once per year to a beauty salon. This places the market at around 5M B2C clients.
Digitizing hair and beauty salons means supporting founders to manage their staff better, as well as aid customers make better-informed decisions about services and pricing, thus improving customer experience. This adds up to the global beauty salon market worldwide, which will most probably reach over €170B by 2024.
