StyleSeat provides an online platform for booking beauty and wellness appointments, allowing hair stylists, make-up artists, nail technicians and other experts to showcase their work and connect with clients. The company was founded in 2011 and is based in San Francisco, CA; Melody McCloskey is the CEO. StyleSeat hosts over 320,000 professionals across more than 15,000 U.S. cities. The service is designed to help industry professionals build their businesses by managing bookings and client relationships. The company intends to use the funds from its recent round to expand operations. No revenue or profitability figures were disclosed in the article. StyleSeat operates a freemium online booking platform for stylists, salons, and beauty pros that lets consumers browse profiles, view work and book appointments. The platform provides paid pro tools (email marketing, advanced scheduling, reminders) and has tested on-site offers where StyleSeat takes a 30% cut of bookings. Since launching in 2011 the service has grown to over 200,000 beauty professionals (from ~55,000 in mid‑2012) and has booked more than 5.5 million appointments (up from 800,000 in June 2012). Mobile is a major channel for the company: 68% of usage comes from mobile and bookings from mobile have grown 16% since the December launch of native apps. The company’s team is ~35 people and is expected to double in 2014 as it hires data science and engineering talent, with an emphasis on mobile. Going forward StyleSeat plans to focus more on the consumer side, with a consumer-facing product feature slated for a Q1/Q2 launch and further exploration of on‑demand mobile experiences. StyleSeat is a scheduling platform for hair stylists and other beauty professionals that lets users find and book appointments. The company launched a "To You" feature in San Francisco that enables booking same-day or later stylist appointments at clients' locations. At launch To You has 15 participating stylists in San Francisco and the company plans to expand the feature to Chicago, Dallas and Atlanta; it also intends to add services such as manicures, massages and straight-razor shaves over time. StyleSeat reports a $4.5 million run-rate on the on-location appointments the platform powers, with "thousands of these appointments" booked per month. The platform hosts more than 80,000 stylist and salon profiles, takes a 10% cut of on-location appointments, and plans to roll out a mobile-friendly site and a consumer mobile app soon. The company previously beta-tested To You at the Crunchies and originally launched at TechCrunch Disrupt. StyleSeat offers beauty and haircare professionals free tools to build and manage their online businesses, centered on an online reservations platform for salon appointments. The company uses a freemium monetization model, charging users a $25 fee for expanded booking, CRM, and marketing features. Since launching last spring it has booked over $17 million in salon appointments and now serves over 40,000 users. The product is presented as part of the broader “OpenTable for X” trend and competes with services like Pencil You In. CEO Melody McCloskey says the company is focused on empowering a large industry of small businesses to make more money. StyleSeat recently announced an incremental $775K funding round that will be added to a prior $700K of investor funding. StyleSeat provides a consumer-facing platform for salons and spas that includes stylist bios, photos, pricing, searchable listings, and online appointment booking—positioning itself as an OpenTable for the beauty industry. For salon owners the product includes daily schedules, mobile access via iPhone and Android apps, and a backend SaaS suite for marketing with analytics, email campaigns, promotions, and conversion tracking. Consumers can search stylists by cost, hair type or specialty, book appointments, and receive text and email reminders. The company plans to launch a customer rewards program to be offered by salons. StyleSeat was founded by Melody McCloskey and Dan Levine and recently raised capital from a group of angel investors. The article cites a $22 billion market dominated by word-of-mouth; StyleSeat does not currently provide lead acquisition as part of its model.

Total raised

$41M

Funding rounds

5

Latest round

Series B

Latest activity

Jul 2015