Member Article

London hair and beauty marketplace Wahanda secures $46m investment

Wahanda, a London-based hair and beauty marketplace, has secured a further $46m investment from existing investor, Recruit Holdings.

The nine-figure deal sees Recruit a majority stake in the company, while Wahanda’s management team will continue to own a significant share in the business.

Klaus Nyengaard, the former CEO of Just-Eat, will continue to sit on the board as co-chairman of the online bookings platform, which has seen 300% year-on-year growth.

Lopo Champalimaud, CEO and founder of Wahanda, said: ““Recruit invested in July 2014 and have been very active investors. We are extremely excited to continue growing the business with them. This is a great deal for everyone involved – employees and investors, and, most importantly, our customers and merchants.

“With its Hot Pepper Beauty business in Japan, Recruit has a wealth of experience in this space and understands how to scale our business. Our ambitions are aligned and the capital investment, expertise and knowledge that Recruit provides will enable us to continue on our growth trajectory, truly cementing our position as the leader in our field.”

As part of its European expansion strategy, Wahanda acquired Germany’s Salonmeister in October 2014 and, just two weeks ago, Austria’s Beautycheck.

In January, the company completed the acqui-hire of the LemonLabs team, the leading Lithuanian mobile app development agency, substantially strengthening the Company’s mobile leadership.

The additional funding by Recruit will be used to further build and accelerate Wahanda’s European position and the company expects to be in eight countries by the end of June this year, with further expansion plans in the months ahead.

The investment will also be used to support a major recruitment drive to build on its 210-strong workforce, as well as funding further product developments and ramping up the customer acquisition & retention strategies in the UK and Europe.

Kazumasa Watanabe, of Recruit Holdings Co. Ltd. said: “This investment will allow us to further improve our international position in the hair and beauty industry. We recognised in Wahanda a world-class team and a company that had already established itself as the market leader in Europe. We look forward to supporting them with the aim of becoming a global leader in the beauty industry.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ellen Forster .