Irish software start-up Barespace has raised €2.9 million in seed funding to help expand its business into new markets in Europe and further develop its platform.
The round was led by Elkstone Ventures, with Dogpatch Labs, Enterprise Ireland, and angel investors such as Cubic Telecom chief executive Barry Napier, former Meta managing director Rick Kelley, Dogpatch Labs chief executive Patrick Walsh and Hostelworld cofounder Tom Kennedy.
It is planning to strengthen its operations in the UK, while also targeting two new European territories next year and increasing its staff across engineering, sales, and customer success.
Barespace offers beauty businesses a unified, intuitive interface, with an operating system built for the industry that replaces existing fragmented systems. Its AI-driven system brings scheduling, payments, ERP, marketing, and analytics into a single purpose-built platform that can help save salon owners hours of time each week. Salons also retain ownership over their data and have direct access to client, transaction, and inventory information.
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The business was founded by Conor Moules and Glenn McGoldrick, who both have extensive experience in the hair and beauty industry.
“No one in this industry got into it because they wanted to be a business person. They got into it because they want to serve people, they want to be creative,” said Mr Moules.
“We really understood the problem we were trying to solve and understood the world, not only from a salon owner’s perspective, but also from the staff on the floor.”
The company, which works with more than 260 salons across Ireland, the UK, France and Spain, has also appointed venture capitalist and entrepreneur Brian Caulfield as chairman.
The latest funding brings total external investment to just under €4.7 million.
“Barespace have developed a platform that can be truly disruptive and transformational in the salon owner space, enabling their customers to maximise revenue and margins, while maintaining focus on growing their core business,” said Niall McEvoy, head of Venture at Elkstone. “This is a great example of a purpose built AI and mobile-first technology product developed by a founding team who have deep industry sector expertise at their core, truly understanding their customers and the challenges they face in building successful businesses with happier and more engaged customers.”
