“Planity Secures $48M in Funding for Revolutionary SaaS Solution for Hair Salons”

If you’ve ever wandered through the rural areas of France, you may have noticed a peculiar quirk of the French culture – even in the most sparsely populated towns, there is always a hair salon.

French startup Planity has capitalized on this love affair with hair salons in France, launching a SaaS product specifically designed for these businesses. Over time, the company has expanded its reach to include other types of beauty salons, such as barbershops and nail salons.

And its success has been surprising – with over 40,000 small businesses now relying on Planity for their appointment booking and more. In fact, the startup has recently raised a considerable €45 million in Series C funding, with InfraVia Capital Partners leading the round and existing investors Crédit Mutuel Innovation, Revaia, and Bpifrance’s Digital Venture fund also participating.

Planity’s journey is a fascinating one, particularly considering it is not the first major European tech company to tackle the challenge of simplifying beauty salon appointment booking. Treatwell, for example, is already operating in a dozen European countries and seemed to have locked down the digitization opportunity in this highly fragmented market.

So what sets Planity apart? The startup’s co-founder and CEO, Antoine Puymirat, initially began working on online appointment booking back in 2007. His first startup, ClicRDV, offered a white-label online booking solution for various types of businesses and was eventually acquired by Pages Jaune (now SoLocal).

After spending several years working for SoLocal, Puymirat decided to take a more focused approach and returned to the drawing board. Instead of attempting to create an all-encompassing appointment solution, he honed in on the beauty salon industry.

During this time, fellow French startup Doctolib was gaining traction. The company, now a unicorn, has revolutionized appointment booking for doctors and other healthcare professionals. Its impact extends beyond just appointment booking – it has fundamentally changed how French people deal with health issues.

Planity drew inspiration from Doctolib. Its SaaS platform replaces the classic paper notebook commonly used in hair salons. When a customer calls to book an appointment, employees enter the information directly into Planity. Of course, appointments can also be booked online through Planity’s app and website. This system becomes the single source of truth and simplifies salon management.

Unlike Treatwell, Planity does not charge a commission on each future sale. Instead, it follows a traditional SaaS model with a monthly subscription fee. The main product currently costs €69 per month, and with rough estimates, it’s safe to say that Planity generates tens of millions of euros in recurring annual revenue.

“Most of the existing players have adopted a traditional marketplace model like that of Booking.com or TheFork,” stated Antoine Puymirat. “Clients pay a percentage of the total amount for each reservation. However, we realized that this model didn’t work well for some companies that have been around for 15 years but never really reached significant scale in Europe.”

Puymirat explains that the primary issue is that most customers are repeat customers, and companies do not want to pay a commission every time they book an appointment. With Planity, the more customers use the platform to book appointments, the less time employees waste on the phone – at no additional cost. This is why beauty salons encourage their customers to use Planity.

“We take it a step further. We also allow our businesses to manage employee schedules, track clock-in and clock-out times, handle vacation time, and export payroll information,” Puymirat added.

Currently, around eight million people visit Planity every month, and the platform handles approximately 10 million bookings a month – with four million of those bookings made directly by customers through Planity. Other appointments are entered manually by employees as customers speak with them directly.

The platform offers a waiting list feature, sends text message reminders, and creates personalized schedules for each employee. For an additional €20 per month, Planity can also replace traditional point-of-sale systems.

Some clients also opt to use payment terminals provided by Planity. In this case, the company utilizes Stripe’s APIs for the payment stack and takes a small fee on each transaction. However, smaller businesses that already have payment terminals through their bank can continue using them.

Moving forward, Planity plans to expand its services to include wellbeing and fitness centers. While its main market remains France – the company’s home country – it is also starting to establish a presence in Belgium and Germany.

In addition to the fragmentation of the beauty salon industry, there is a significant barrier to entry for potential Planity competitors. The company has a large sales team dedicated to meeting with new clients and ensuring they understand how the software platform works.

This sales strategy requires significant capital investment and a solid sales playbook to be successful. Currently, around 200 salespeople work for Planity, with plans to expand the team even further.