Divvy’s mission became even more crucial during COVID-19, when economic volatility caused the housing market to become increasingly challenging to access. “At the start of the pandemic, we made a commitment to help and support as many future homeowners as possible,” said Adena Hefets, co-founder and CEO of Divvy Homes. “During COVID-19, new mortgages became difficult to secure as banks tightened underwriting requirements for approvals. “This superior functionality leads to bottom-up driven success for businesses of any size in the beauty and wellness industry.As a result, families were locked out of homeownership opportunities during a global pandemic-a time when they needed safety and shelter most. “Unlike other solutions that tend to focus on business managers with a top-down approach, GlossGenius focuses first on serving the needs of service professionals that are running their businesses, helping them deliver the best possible client service in a convenient, mobile-first platform,” Bennett wrote via email. The startup, he told TechCrunch, is “one of the few efficient hyper-growth companies that is succeeding through organic adoption among small businesses.” Kent Bennett, partner at Bessemer Venture Partners, said his firm was amazed to see the “true customer love” for the GlossGenius product. Part of the new capital will go toward building a marketing team. All of its growth has been driven primarily by word of mouth, according to Cohen-Shohet. What’s fascinating about GlossGenius is that it has managed to surpass $1 billion in GMV with a zero-person sales team. It plans to use its new capital mostly toward expansion and creating “unique product experiences that help extract the burden of running a business.” The startup is also looking to boost its 100-person team. I think we’re in the middle of a renaissance for SMB tech.”įor now, GlossGenius is focused on growth over profitability. Small businesses have specific needs and need technology built just for them to be successful,” she said. “The recent and successful IPO of Toast has only reinforced that vertical software is here to stay. While some companies are opting to go horizontal, GlossGenius touts its vertical SaaS approach as being key to its success - an approach that Cohen-Shohet likens to Toast. “For much of the time, the business was revenue-financed.”ĬEO and founder Danielle Cohen-Shohet. “The early focus on bootstrapping helped us be maniacally focused on product market fit and revenue generation and helped business have a strong start,” Cohen-Shohet told TechCrunch. GlossGenius had previously raised $2.8 million in pre-seed and seed funding from angels and Techstars but then bootstrapped for five years before seeking more outside capital. Everything is accessible.”Ī former Goldman Sachs analyst, Cohen-Shohet launched the New York-based startup in 2016. “And what that means is everything is there for them. “What’s so special about what we’re doing is that we are connecting the dots for business owners across their whole entire back office on GlossGenius,” said founder and CEO Danielle Cohen-Shohet. The end goal is to remove the administrative burden from the small business owners so they can focus more on growing their businesses. Put simply, GlossGenius aims to be a “Business in a box” solution for salon, spa and studio owners. Now the B2B software startup has also transitioned into payments as a fintech hardware provider for the beauty and wellness industry with the development of a card reader that integrates with its app. With “tens of thousands” of business customers (two-thirds of which are women or underrepresented), GlossGenius recently surpassed $1 billion in gross merchandise volume. Notably, a high-profile group of angels also participated in the financing, including Shopify co-founder and CEO Tobias Lütke, Toast CEO Chris Comparato, Toast co-founder Aman Narang, Mindbody co-founder Robert Murphy, Yelp executives and former Venmo executives. GlossGenius, a technology provider for the spa, studio and salon industry, announced today it has raised $16.4 million in a Series A funding round led by Bessemer Venture Partners.
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