Dubai’s Beauty App Fabogo Conquers India

Prasanjeet Roy and Mohammad Ali Akmal co-founded their beauty and wellness startup Mazkara in 2015 in Dubai. Soon after that, the company entered the Indian market. Last year, the startup decided to tie up with the branding agency Firebrands and turned into Fabogo.

Nowadays, the startup has grown even more. It has offices in Dubai, Pune, and Mumbai. The team increased to 90 people. A friend in common, a restaurant owner in Dubai, introduced the two co-founders to each other back in 2015. By that time, Ali, a software engineer with 25 years of experience, was working on developing an online and table reservation engine. Prasanjeet, a holder of MBA degree and a serial entrepreneur, gained over five years of experience in sales and commerce across UAE and India.

Fabogo helps users find a hyper-local salon and spa centers. The app also allows them to book appointments and pay online. They can also review the venue. The app is available for iOS and Android. The spa centers owners can update their listings, reply to reviews, track page analytics, manage bookings, and more.

Fabogo quickly turned into the most comprehensive database in the industry. In the future, it aims to become the world’s largest online platform for the beauty and wellness sector.

Prasanjeet commented:

We are honest believers of the ‘feet-on-street’ model for content collection. We had assembled a field team that went out collecting information about venues, and that’s how we located a potential business.

So far, the ambitious startup managed to raise over USD 2.25 million from the Dubai-based micro private equity fund Dinamis Ventures. In the beginning of 2016, another group of angel investors secured USD 1 million for the company. The founders are planning to use 40% of the funding to strengthen the technology and another 40% to increase their user database. The rest of the amount received will be used for geographical expansion. Prasanjeet estimated that the app acquired most of its users via the social media channels. At the moment, most of the revenues come from the UAE market, followed by India. So far, Fabogo has 350 000 users, over 10,000 listed venues. The app had 12 000 downloads.

 

 

 

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