Salonkee raises €28M to fuel continued rapid growth and solidify position as Europe’s leading provider of Salon Management Software
Salonkee raises €28M to fuel continued rapid growth and solidify position as Europe’s leading provider of Salon Management Software
Salonkee, Europe's premier salon management solution and booking platform for the hair- and beauty industry, today announced that it has raised €28M in growth capital to further extend market penetration across Europe, continue to invest in innovation, and expand its global team to capitalize on the immense demand for its solution. Fortino Capital, Newion, Expon Capital and LBAN doubled down in the Series B round led by PeakSpan Capital, a growth-stage B2B software-focused investment firm with offices in New York, Silicon Valley and over $1.5 billion under management.
The salon management software market in the United States has experienced rapid growth over the last decade, fueled by a dramatic increase in new startup activity and supported by billions of dollars of investment from venture capital and private equity firms. The European salon market, however, has among others, due to the higher complexity of multiples countries, languages, cultures, and legislations, lagged the US in terms of penetration of software solutions. Today, the market is however quickly catching up and Salonkee has been architected since inception to capitalize on the expansive international opportunity in the European market, and has quickly established leadership positions with significant market penetration across multiple regions, enabled by a large and growing international team.
Matt Melymuka, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at PeakSpan Capital noted, “The Salonkee team identified a massive market opportunity in Europe early on, characterized by a highly-fragmented landscape of competitors with no clear market leader and a suite of outdated or simplistic solutions. The team has demonstrated an incredibly impressive track record of rapid, capital efficient growth and has been surgical in deploying a well-defined scaling playbook to methodically expand to new European markets and quickly establish market leadership and penetration. The go-to-market engine the team has built is one of the more well-oiled machines we’ve seen, and has driven tremendous growth with remarkable predictability and consistency. We’re privileged to partner with Salonkee to capitalize on the opportunity to further extend its leadership position in the highly strategic European market.”
“The majority of salons across Europe today are still being managed either without the use of technology or they have only implemented a standard point-of-sale solution with a basic booking or scheduling platform to accept appointments online. The opportunity to leverage software to optimize every element of their operations is huge”, added Tom Michels, Co-Founder and CEO of Salonkee.
“We’ve developed a comprehensive, end-to-end solution enabling customers to digitize all aspects of their operation, yielding tremendous efficiency gains and mind-blowing ROI. Our platform provides everything needed to run a salon business in the modern era from a single pane of glass, offered at a disruptive price point. This makes our solution incredibly sticky and mission critical for our customers. We’re thrilled to have PeakSpan on board as a partner and look forward to investing the proceeds from this financing to continue to deliver the best possible solution in market to our customers.”
Salonkee’s platform offers salon owners with a soup to nuts solution supporting everything from online booking and scheduling, to integrated online and in-store payments, CRM and messaging/communication, resource and inventory planning, loyalty program management, and accounting/finance, among others. The comprehensive nature of the platform and the breadth of the solution have contributed to the company’s rapid growth trajectory. With a best-in-class net revenue retention of 135%, Salonkee has long-proven the sustainability and success of its model in an SMB market which is usually plagued by a higher churn rates . The deliberate approach the company has pursued to market expansion and expertise the team has developed in understanding the keys to success in each market, from language requirements to local regulations and an appreciation for cultural barriers has quickly catapulted Salonkee into a market leadership position and resulted in deep penetration of every market the company has focused on to date.
Salonkee is based in Luxembourg, and currently has 110 employees across offices in Luxembourg, Belgium, Switzerland, Germany and the Netherlands. The company today services thousands of customers and has grown revenue and customer count over 100% annually since inception.
