• The company is now the world’s biggest and fastest growing booking app for beauty businesses and handles over 2.5 million bookings per month from across the globe
• Investment received from investors of AUTO1, MySQL and also ‘The Unicorn Whisperer’ Zach Coelius
• Booksy has partnered with tech brands including Google, Facebook, Instagram & Yelp

Booksy, the world’s largest and fastest growing booking app for appointment-based beauty businesses, today announces that it has secured $13.2 million (£9.5 million) in funding.

The funding was led by Piton Capital (investors of AUTO1 and FanDuel), with participation from OpenOcean (founders of MySQL and MariaDB) and notable investors such as Sebastian Kulczyk and Zach Coelius, also known as “The Unicorn Whisperer”.

Booksy will use the funding to drive global growth, recruit high profile talent and develop proprietary technologies that will simplify its merchant’s customer experience and support its one million bookings per month. This includes the implementation of one-click booking, a feature that uses machine learning and AI technologies, to determine each user’s buying pattern and offer them the best dates with their favourite stylists.

With the global beauty industry valued at $150 billion, the American-Polish startup has successfully evolved into a game-changing mobile-first business for the global beauty industry.Booksy has raised over $8.2million to date, and following a successful Series A funding round in 2017, has launched in the US and rapidly become the number one booking app in the world, beating competitors in US, UK, Brazil, South Africa, Spain – and more. It has also undertaken partnerships with tech giants, including; Google, Yelp, Facebook and Instagram.

Booksy was co-founded by Stefan Batory and Konrad Howard. The entrepreneurs previously founded and turned iTaxi into the number one taxi-hailing app in Poland. Prior to this, Stefan Batory listed his first software company, Eo Networks on the local stock exchange.

Booksy’s success is largely due to its expert development team in Poland, with the country being ranked as one of the top three countries for developers in the world. Booksy will also be expanding the company’s already 200 strong team with a series of high profile new hires, which include; Juliana Katz (Chief Marketing Officer) and Aaron Meier (Regional Director).

How Booksy works:

Booksy allows beauty professionals and salon owners, to set up calendars, share their availability and accept bookings through a ‘mobile first’ interface. Merchants that manage their business and customer data through the product are encouraged to promote the app to customers as it increases loyalty, booking ease, engagement and even increases the frequency of customer visits.

The company offers a range of functionalities designed to assist and support their processes. These include marketing automation, managing customer relationships, inventory management, point-of-sale, reports and the management of commission for employees.

A recent NPS (Net Promoter Score) survey on Booksy ranked the company at an NPS of 70 with customers stating that it allows them to “focus on other aspects of your business” and they “always recommend it to other stylists”. One respondent stated that “Booksy lets me concentrate on the client I have in front of me while the next client can book with no interruptions” attesting to the usability and functionality of the service.

Andrin Bachmann, co-founder and partner at Piton Capital, says: “We are delighted to back Stefan and the entire team at Booksy again. They are starting to see the benefits of a strong network effect, and we believe they have an opportunity to build the leading SaaS-enabled marketplace in the beauty industry in the US and beyond.”

Zach Coelius, managing partner of Coelius Capital, stated: “Stefan is a true pro with significant successes already behind him and a deep understanding of this game. Within ten minutes of meeting him, I knew I wanted to invest.”

Booksy co-founder and CEO Stefan Batory said: “There is a clear need for Booksy’s mobile-first approach, it gets to the heart of some of the core challenges for micro-beauty businesses. It is this, alongside the business model and on-boarding process, which has helped Booksy to become the world’s leading booking app for appointment-based businesses.

Booksy’s considerable growth can be attributed to a substantial network effect and referrals from existing customers, who love the product because we negate the needless back and forth associated with the whole booking process. We’ve noticed with our continual updates and integrations into the Booksy service, our merchants have seen a significant increase in bookings. They see Booksy as their own personal secretary, allowing them to focus on own customers and streamlining their hectic schedules.”