YouWeCan Ventures, a new early-stage venture fund floated by cricketer Yuvraj Singh, has made its debut investment by investing an undisclosed amount in a startup currently building its apps for a mobile marketplace for beauty and wellness services under the brand Vyomo , it said on Monday.
The startup is yet to launch its apps but its website says it will be available for both Android and iOS platforms. The merchant app will be live next month while the app for users is expected to be out in July.
Founded by Abhinav Khare and Poonam Marwah, Vyomo would connect people with stylists and salon chains in towns. Users will be able to search based on their current location, discover salons and spas, compare prices, read customer reviews and also book services.
Khare has a decade of experience in strategy and corporate development while Poonam has around 16 years of experience in operations, internet marketing and technology. Both hold MBA degrees from London Business School.
Khare has worked at Alcatel-Lucent, MTS Group and power works authority of Qatar government besides some management consulting firms in the past. Poonam has also co-founded some other ventures, including a guest house cum serviced apartment business with an online interface PrettyHomeS.
“Signing-up with YouWeCan Ventures for securing our seed funding is an important milestone for the company and one which will allow us to scale and expand to meet the demands of our global users,†said Khare. He added that Vyomo aims to bring more than one million stylists on the platform by 2017.
For YouWeCan, this is the first investment from Singh's newly launched fund.
"We decided to invest in Vyomo based the execution capability of the team headed by MBAs from the London Business School, a truly great product and our belief in the vision of Vyomo that the artificial intelligence and data analytics can simplify the lives of millions of Indians," said Singh.
(Edited by Joby Puthuparampil Johnson)
