GlossGenius, a software platform for beauty salons, has raised $28 million in series C funding.

The equity round was led by L Catterton Growth Fund, with participation from Bessemer Enterprise Partners and Imaginary Ventures at a $510 million valuation.

Launched in 2016 by Princeton graduate Danielle Cohen-Shohet, GlossGenius’s technology manages small business’ end-to-end workflows across their back-office and front-office resembling payments, bookings, inventory, expenses, marketing, communications, analytics, web site design and more. Based on L Catterton, it serves around 50,000 beauty professionals within the U.S. currently.

On the brand new investment, Cohen-Shohet, who’s chief executive officer, said: “L Catterton is considered one of the leading global consumer-focused investment firms. They’ve very deep roots in the wonder, wellness industry, having invested in some iconic consumer and software corporations in an area that may be very vital and relevant for us. And when it got here to the C round, it was just an exquisite opportunity to work with a partner on this space that had such preeminence with their prior knowledge and past investments.”

The extra funding will speed up GlossGenius’ development of its platform, following its recent release of myriad consumer experience, payment and automation products, in response to Cohen-Shohet.

“We’ve got been helping our business customers grow revenue by 25 to one hundred pc and save hours of manual work each day, driving financial success for local entrepreneurs,” she added. “This round will help us extend our leadership and proceed to support these businesses.” 

Of its investment, Ian Friedman, a partner in L Catterton’s Growth Fund, told WWD that he sees a giant opportunity for the corporate to grow its customer base.

“Today it’s seeing unbelievable traction with 50,000 beauty professionals, but there are 1.3 million beauty professionals within the U.S. alone so there’s a really large market on the market,” he said. “We all know that about half of beauty entrepreneurs don’t even use software today. They’re using pen and paper. They’re using Google documents, which brings loads of friction to the technique of booking. It’s hard for purchasers, it’s hard for them to administer their business. And we all know that by moving to GlossGenius, you see incredible advantages. So with our investment we predict lots more beauty professionals are going to be adopting the software.”

That is the second raise for GlossGenius within the last 12 months and brings the corporate’s total funding to about $70 million so far. 

In September, it raised $25 million in a series B round led by Imaginary Ventures and Bessemer Enterprise Partners, with participation from Left Lane Capital. In 2021, it said it had raised $19 million from a seed round, plus a series A investment led by Bessemer Enterprise Partners.