Inspired by the success of such apps as Gettaxi and Uber, two Moscow entrepreneurs have just launched GetNowBeauty, a mobile app that allows you to call to your home or office a hairdresser, facial aesthetic, hair removal or nail manicure specialist. To develop the service, former bank legal adviser and singer Anna Korona — whose real name is Anna Yapryntseva — and her husband Zakhar Shatrov have raised no less than $2 million from an individual investor, reported CNews.ru earlier this month.
This undisclosed investor is a real estate businessman with no previous investment in the high tech sector, Korona and Shatrov told CNews.
The founders believe that their service has “no equivalent in the world.” Many apps do offer the possibility to call a beauty specialist in Russia; however, notes CNews, but GetNowBeauty is different in that it integrates a geolocation function — which allows the specialist to come to his or her client “in less than 30 minutes.”
GetNowBeauty’s business model is based on commission fees — up to 20% — paid by the beauty specialist to the company.
The service now operates only in Moscow with 1,300 beauty specialists already registered in its database. GetNowBeauty expects to attract no less than 5,000 specialists this fall with 25,000 transactions per month. The company plans to expand to Sochi in the Russian riviera in a few months, then to San Francisco, then to a yet-to-be-disclosed Arabic country.
Shatrov told CNews that he expects his investor to bring an additional $10 million to launch in the USA. A separate round of funding will be required for the expansion in the Arab world.
