General Atlantic lead $100m investment in Fresha's future

Following months of investor meetings and countless hours of reviewing and documenting our business model and growth plan, we’re excited to announce a massive $100 million Series C investment in Fresha led by New York-based General Atlantic, a major investor in some of the world's leading tech platforms. Strategic participation from Huda Kattan, the founder of the Huda Beauty cosmetics line, Michael Zeisser of FMZ Ventures, and Jonathan Green of Lugard Road Capital, along with past investors Partech, Target Global, and FJ Labs, brings the total investments in Fresha to $132 million to date.

Having amassed an extensive network of more than 50 thousand partner businesses in 120+ countries, we’ve seen some 250 million appointments booked, worth $12 billion to date. Our strategic focus on simple-to-use software, with no monthly subscription fees, means over 60% of salons and spas joining Fresha have discovered us organically. With most switching from expensive, traditional subscription-based offerings, businesses rave about its ease of use, time-saving benefits, and features to grow sales, whilst end-customers enjoy an unrivaled booking and payment experience.

Discussing the reason behind our success so far, Founder and CEO William Zeqiri said, “From the day we founded Fresha, our core focus has been offering a solution that delights customers. That drive has continued to direct our feature development and long-term vision. The rapid growth we’re seeing is down to having happy customers that love using Fresha” he said. “The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated demand among beauty and wellness businesses across the globe for online bookings and integrated card payments, now seen as essential to run any modern-day salon or spa. During 2020 alone, Fresha saw an astonishing twelve-fold increase in the volume of card payments processed on the platform”.

Traditional software offerings for beauty and wellness businesses are often expensive to purchase and difficult to use. “Salons face an obstacle of inefficient scheduling which results in low occupancy and lost sales,” said Nick Miller, Fresha Co-Founder and Chief of Product. "More than ever, beauty and wellness businesses are opting to grow sales by leveraging tools for online payments, self-service bookings, and automated marketing. Fresha’s technology optimizes appointment bookings with real-time online availability, and boosts local discovery, helping partner salons grow sales by an average of 28%” he said.

“Fresha has emerged as a leader powering the beauty and wellness industry and we’re thrilled to be part of this journey together with their incredible team,” said Aaron Goldman, Managing Director at General Atlantic. “I have been extremely impressed by how the team has built the business and their potential ahead. Fresha has a massive opportunity with a great product and a low-cost freemium distribution model. The platform creates tremendous long-term value through an intersection of payments, software and marketplace” he said.

Huda Kattan, founder of Huda Beauty, shared her excitement at investing in the company; “I’ve witnessed first-hand the positive impact Fresha has for beauty entrepreneurs. The company is a force for good in the growing community of beauty professionals around the globe, who are increasingly adopting a self-employed approach. By making top business software accessible without any subscription fees, Fresha lets professionals focus on what they do best — offering great experiences for their customers.” Commercial agreements aren’t presently planned between Fresha and Huda Beauty; the relationship is strategic as Kattan collaborates with Fresha in an advisory capacity. “Moving forward we see plenty of exciting opportunities to work together closely with Huda and her team, particularly in the space of beauty product e-commerce” added William Zeqiri.

We previously raised Series B investment from Paris-based Partech, along with Series A and Seed investments from Dubai-based MEVP. The new Series C round of funding will help us strengthen our efforts to broaden our network of partner salons and spas, scale product development and attract more customers to book through its marketplace. “The new funds and partnerships will supercharge Fresha’s growth plans and further expand our product offering,” said Miller, who hinted that we may be on the lookout to acquire competitors along the way.