The Chennai Angels (TCA), a network of private angel investors, has invested an undisclosed amount in Tamil Nadu-based Syona Cosmetics Pvt Ltd, which provides professional beauty products besides training to salons & spas, according to a press release.
This is the first investment by Chennai Angels since January this year and the round was led by member Arun Kumar M.
“Syona Cosmetics fits perfectly into the skin and hair care segment in the rapidly growing beauty salon chain market in India. We believe that product superiority based on research and focus on training beauticians in salons will give it an edge in the salon space. We at TCA are excited to be in this Rs 2,500 crore beauty salon segment,” said Arun Kumar.
“The funding will help Syona Cosmetics stabilise and scale up operations in South India and test the waters in retail. Syona also has its eyes set on retail offerings with unique concepts and solutions that are certain to excite the category," said Raja Varatharaju, co-founder of Syona.
Founded in 2012 by Varatharaju and Anuradha Balasubramanian, Syona Cosmetics provides services under the brand name Estrella Professional and has a presence in most leading salons and spa chains in Chennai.
Varatharaju and Anuradha have over a decade of experience each in sales & marketing and FMCG, telecom & education, respectively. Prior to founding this venture, Varatharaju has worked with companies like Henkel, Ford and CavinKare while Anuradha worked with HeyMath, Vodafone and CavinKare.
The Chennai Angels (earlier known as Chennai Entrepreneurship Trust Fund) was founded in November 2007 and provides finance to early stage technology-based companies in India. The fund is facilitated by the charter members of TiE Chennai. Since inception, it has invested in over one-and-a-half dozen companies.
Last year, its members invested in around eight companies, including Traveling Spoon, Manash Lifestyle Pvt Ltd (Purplle.com), Everest Edusys, Ufony Services Pvt Ltd, Fourth Partner Energy Pvt Ltd, Sumiran Spiritual Services Pvt Ltd (Online Prasad), Velvetcase and POPxo, according to VCCEdge, the data research platform of VCCircle.
