Vanitee, which is a Singapore-based beauty tech startup has secured S$5 million in funding. According to a press release by Vanitee, in just six months, homegrown tech-beauty start-up Vanitee has successfully raised S$5 million in capital for its first round of funding. The latest round of $3 million, which was closed just last month, comes from serial entrepreneur Ivan Lee and Japan’s No.1 beauty portal @cosme. These investments follow an earlier S$2 million injection by South East Asia’s largest beauty distributor Luxasia and angel investor Robert Yap who runs Asia’s leading logistics company YCH. Ivan Lee is founder and chairman of private investment company Raging Bull, through which he is making the investment into Vanitee. Ivan Lee founded the ThaiExpress group of restaurants which had 2000 staff in 100 restaurants across Asia and Oceania. ThaiExpress was acquired in 2009 for $100 million. Ivan Lee said: “It is rare for a local start-up to be able to raise $5 million in its first round of funding. I invested in Vanitee because I believe it will do for the beauty industry what Airbnb and Uber did for the hospitality and transport industry. Vanitee will radicalise and create new business opportunities for beauty professionals and at the same time, expand the range of choices and bring top quality, on-demand services to customers.” With the increased capital, Vanitee will begin its expansion into the region next year, starting with Malaysia in the first quarter of 2016. Since the app’s inception in May 2015, Vanitee has served over 4,700 customers through a network of over 550 verified independent artists. There are an additional 1,200 beauty artists in the pipeline undergoing Vanitee’s stringent 27-step verification process to be qualified as a service provider on the beauty booking app. Team TOS
