In a seed round led by Index Ventures, London startup Beautystack managed to raise £4 million — about $5 million — in funding.
Former salon owner and brand consultant, Sharmadean Reid, founded Beautystack in April of 2017. Since then, the company has been joined by co-founders, Dan Woodbury and Ken Lalobo, TechCrunch reported.
Describing itself as a “community of beauty treatment junkies,” Beautystack is a booking platform for beauty professionals. However, the app stands apart from others because it focuses on the creator. In that way, it’s part social media app as well. Ultimately, the goal is to help beauty professionals become truly independent.
“In my opinion they are the foundation of the industry and with Beautystack our mission is towards gender quality by increasing the earnings of these ‘Beauty Pros,'” Reid told TechCrunch. “I want to turn the beauty professionals into the next beauty influencers and have them earning salaries comparable to beauty bloggers. They always have been influential, but now we want to push them to the forefront.”
Before Beautystack, Reid launched WAH Nails, a successful nail salon that started on the East end of London and eventually moved to Oxford Circus. It grew from an idea Reid had about nail art to a company with famous clientele like Serena Williams and Margot Robbie.
Reid outlined her vision and mission for Beautystack in an April blog post. She said the thing that drives her is making women more economically independent. Here’s a bit more from her on why she decided to make launching the company her life’s mission:
“How can I help these entrepreneurial creatives have true economic empowerment? How can I help them increase revenue doing the thing they love without increasing their workload? How can I get marketing budgets and recognition to the specialist and niche beauty pros. How can I help partner brands understand whats happening on a street level from the unique insight we have from direct relationships to influential beauty pros and clients on the salon floor? And not spend 7 years wondering if its a real trend or just a fad?
These are the questions I ask myself daily and the initial problems we are working to solve.
Lets make the pie bigger, for everyone.”
-Sharmadean Reid
As founders, Black women in tech have historically been underfunded. In September 2018, The Next Web reported that Reid was one of the few Black women to raise over £1 million in a recently closed round of seed funding. Impressive for an app that started as a Beta in July
Beautystack is a clever way of bringing together the best of booking platforms and social media to help other young entrepreneurs. It’s going to be exciting to watch as the app continues to grow.
