Wahanda, Europe’s largest hair and beauty marketplace, has acquired its Dutch equivalent called Treatwell for €34m (US$38m, £25m). This is the fourth European acquisition by Wahanda in the last six months as part of the company’s strategy to become the leading online hair and beauty booking platform in Europe.
Lopo Champalimaud, CEO and founder of Wahanda, said: “The Treatwell team comes with a wealth of talent, some of whom we have been fortunate enough to have worked with in the past… these include a co-founder of Just-Eat Benelux, and ex-CFO of
Booking.com and a former senior executive at Procter & Gample.”
Treatwell has seen year-on-year growth of more than 425 per cent since its launch in 2013, according to a statement by Wahanda. The Dutch platform has over 2,500 spas and salons signed up across The Netherlands, Belgium and Germany. The combined company now has more than 15,000 venues across Europe and more than 20m people using its automated booking service.
Treatwell is backed by two investors, Project A Ventures and Piton Capital. Andrin Bachmann of Piton Capital commented: “In a very competitive space, Treatwell has built up a great business in a very short time and it has been an absolute pleasure to be part of that journey. We are convinced that they will now successfully continue their journey as part of the Wahanda and the Recruit Group.”
The acquisition of Treatwell follows the €42m (US$47m, £31m) investment in Wahanda by
existing investor Recruit Holdings in May – which is being used to support accelerated growth in the combined company.
As part of its European expansion strategy, Wahanda acquired
Germany’s Salonmeister in October 2014 and recently took over Austria’s Beautycheck. In January,
Lithuanian mobile app development agency LemonLabs joined the team.
The company also recently announced it will launch a UK-based academy that will offer sales and marketing advice to salons. The institution will be called
the Wahanda Academy.
