Nordic Startup News Early Stage Startup News From The Nordics
The Lithuanian based startup Watalook is striving to redefine the beauty tech market with its digital assistant for independent beauty professionals across the U.S. Watalook has experienced a growth of over 30% in users each month and has recently raised $1M in the pre-seed round co-led by Startup Wise Guys, Crosspring, Launchpad Capital, and angel investors.
Watalook provides a platform for 24/7 online client self-booking, smart calendar that fills in the free time gaps first, sends automated text message updates and reminders for appointments, collects client data and provides insights like revenue, appointments frequency, cancellations or no-shows, etc,- all of that has been designed with a mission to decrease time and energy-consuming processes for beauty professionals so they can focus on what they do best – beauty services. This is the first-of-a-kind offering in the beauty services industry, and it will revolutionize the way a hairstylist, nail technician, or makeup artist’s profession is perceived. Recently an rapidly increasing amount of beauty professionals have joined Watalook.
“The data shows that the number of beauty professionals trusting Watalook digital assistant to manage their beauty businesses grows by leaps and bounds. We see a steady >30% month over month growth in the number of beauticians using Watalook, and consequently growing appointments booked through the platform by +34%” says CEO and co-founder Klaudijus Ambrozas
The beauty industry of Generation Z
Today’s U.S. beauty services market is worth $66B and employs over 706k beauty professionals, of which 70% work as independent contractors as compared to only 20% in the year 2011. That’s around half a million beauticians that need to be proficient in client acquisition and retention techniques, digital marketing campaigns, portfolio building, beauty blogging, and a 24/7 secretary to book appointments and send reminders to clients – and all that is in addition to a 12-14h workday. Is there any life after work then? Generation Z definitely wants one.
“This success couldn’t be achieved with a merely good product, culture is what makes it vanguard and resonates with GenZ’s approach to life and digital nativeness”. says CEO and co-founder Klaudijus Ambrozas
The success of Watalook
Launched in April 2020, Watalook has already outlasted two nationwide lockdowns that paradoxically only fueled the company’s growth – year to date number of beauty rockstars using Watalook digital assistant has already outperformed 2020 by +317%, and the majority of this surge has been achieved organically.
“We have seen remarkable growth of the company since we did our first investment almost a year ago. And these numbers prove to the public what we see firsthand – the team behind Watalook knows the market in and out, completely feels the vibe of Gen Z clients, and have the tools, knowledge, and guts to reach it. Excited to be part of this would be an understatement.“ says Jone Vaituleviciute, Partner at Startup Wise Guys.
The investors are Startup Wise Guys, Crosspring, Launchpad Capital, and angel investors. Watalook is only the second European startup that has received an investment from Launchpad Capital for an expansion to the US.
