Singapore’s Vanitee acquires startup to get beauty salons on its marketplace

Photo credit: Vanitee announced today it has acquired Singapore-based beauty salon directory, blog, and deals site Mefitted. The value of the deal is undisclosed but is in the low-to-middle six-digits, and was in both cash and shares, according to Vanitee CEO and co-founder Douglas Gan.

Vanitee has been operating in Singapore for the past year. The website features about 1,700 freelance beauty professionals. It claims to be the number one beauty provider in Singapore. Key beauty categories on its service include mails, makeup, hairstyling, and eyebrow/eyelash styling, Douglas says.

Mefitted contains 8,200 beauty-related businesses in its directory, including about 120 brands including Spa Esprit Group, Jean Yip, and Porcelain Face Spa. It’s also host to about 30 beauty bloggers.

All these services will be rolled into Vanitee’s website in the next few months, Douglas tells Tech in Asia. Mefitted co-founder Joanne Teo, a lawyer-turned-entrepreneur, will join the company in a marketing strategy capacity.

See: Vanitee fair: new service connects beauty professionals to customers in Singapore

Mefitted currently has 10,000 monthly active users. Douglas does not reveal Vanitee’s own user metrics, although he says the number is much higher than Mefitted’s.

Vanitee raised a seed round worth US$3.5 million in December 2015. Douglas had previously told Tech in Asia that the company would look for similar startups to acquire, saying, “I’m a big fan of acquiring startups that can help us gain speed.”

What drew Vanitee to nabbing Mefitted was the fact that it features salons and similar businesses, unlike Vanitee, where users find mainly freelance beauty artists. “[It] strengthens our salon and beauty artist relationships,” he explains.

For its second year, Vanitee hopes to strengthen its four key beauty categories and add massage and facial care. “By end of 2017, we hope to be the main platform for booking beauty services,” Douglas says.

After its seed funding, the startup expressed interest in expanding to Malaysia. However, heavy competition in that market has made Vanitee reconsider its priorities. “[We] decided to consolidate our resources and focus on the Singapore market instead of expanding to Malaysia at this time,” Douglas explains. The team will explore expansion again in early 2017.

(Update, 7pm: Vanitee’s latest funding round was mistakenly referred to as series A. It is actually a seed round.)