Mazkara raises $1M seed funding from Dunamis Ventures

Dubai-based Mazkara FZ LLC, which runs beauty and wellness startup Mazkara, has raised $1 million (around Rs 6.8 crore) in seed funding from early-stage investor Dunamis Ventures Pte Ltd.

Mazkara had earlier raised $500,000 in angel funding from private investors based in Dubai.

The startup will use the funding to expand to Abu Dhabi, Delhi and Mumbai and also to ramp up its product team, it said in a statement.

Mazkara was co-founded in March 2015 by Prasanjeet Roy and Mohammad Ali Akmal. It launched operations in Dubai in May 2015 and entered the Pune market in August 2015. The company enables customers to discover local salons and spas and also allows them to call and book appointments through its platform.

"Our target markets in India and the Middle East have over 40,000 beauty and wellness venues, which together receive over 144 million appointments annually. Currently, not even 2 per cent of these venues have an active online presence, and a negligible 0.2 per cent of these appointments are being booked online," said Roy.

Mazkara's current business model is pay-per-lead based, wherein they charge a small fee for every customer directed to a partnered venue.

The platform gets almost 3000 visitors every day, it claimed, adding that the number of visitors is growing at 15 per cent month on month. It also sees an average of 500 appointments made through its platform.

The startup aims to achieve break even for its Dubai operations by September 2016. It also plans to launch its operations in Singapore at a later date.

Gurgaon-based beauty and wellness startup Stylofie.com, operated by Soulmo Solutions Pvt Ltd, had last year raised $250,000 in seed funding from Hong Kong-based Swastika Company Ltd.

In November 2015, Bangalore-based Gomalon Technology Ventures Pvt Ltd, which runs listing platform for wellness services Gomalon, had acquired spa booking service bookmyspa.in for about Rs 12 crore ($1.8 million).)