Book Salon, a Finnish start-up providing a full suite of modern tools to run a successful business, raised €3 million in funding.
WHO: Helsinki-based Book Salon is a Finnish payment and booking service provider specializing in hair, beauty, and wellness companies providing entrepreneurs with a full suite of modern tools to run a successful business. Book Salon offers payment terminals and a payment processing service, in addition to its website builder, online booking systems, and cash and accounting reports.
WHY: Book Salon's goal is to help the 65 percent of European salons with no digital systems in place, rolling out its all-in-one payment processing and booking platform to European beauty and wellness service providers. The funding will be used for European expansion, with the first targets identified as the Nordics, UK, Ireland, Spain, and Italy.
IN THEIR OWN WORDS: "We are excited to have the backing of Joint Effects who can help us accelerate the development of our operational capabilities and scale into Europe," says Book Salon CEO Harri Myllylä.
"Joint Effects and their ambition level is a perfect match for Book Salon. With their help, we aim to disrupt the current Payment Service Provider market, and the hair, beauty, and wellness sector is our first target. We believe that PSPs need to go beyond providing payment processing services. That's why at Book Salon we also provide access to industry-specific value-adding services and tools that help the entrepreneurs save time, effort, and money," he continues.
"We are very impressed with Book Salon´s growth and their ability to efficiently attract customers. We believe the global vertical software market will be growing and Book Salon is perfectly positioned in their chosen segment. There are tremendous growth opportunities in the beauty and wellness sector in vertical expansion such as microfinancing, banking services, integrated bookkeeping and many more," says Tuomo Vuolteenaho, President at Joint Effects.
Larger corporate competitors require entrepreneurs to pay per user and commit to lengthy contracts with vague compounding cost structures. Book Salon differs in that it offers its platform to salons and entrepreneurs for free with the option to upgrade to a paid package with an unlimited number of users. This approach makes it uniquely accessible, profitable, and transparent for micro-entrepreneurs.
The European beauty and wellness trades are dominated by small establishments that often have fewer than three employees. Additionally, the share of self-employment in these sectors is two to ten times higher than in the whole of the economy.
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