Prose, a NYC-based technology-powered beauty company, closed an $18m Series B financing.
The round, which brought total funding to $25m, was led by Insight Venture Partners with participation from existing investors Forerunner Ventures, ISAI, Lerer Hippeau Ventures and Correlation Ventures. In conjunction with the funding, Nicolas Wittenborn, Principal at Insight Venture Partners will join Prose’s board of directors.
The company intends to use the funds to invest in an in-house data science team and double its current R&D team.
Launched in January 2018 by CEO Arnaud Plas and CTO Nicolas Mussat, Prose is a custom hair care brand that offers consumers freshly-made products to meet their unique hair and scalp needs. Consumers take a holistic consultation about their hair type and texture, lifestyle habits, environmental exposure (pollution, UV, humidity, hard water and wind) and diet and stress levels. Each custom formula also accounts for personal preferences, whether they are vegan, gluten or opt for fragrance-free, and is made-to-order in their NYC lab.
Through their online consultation, Prose has collected half a million consumer profiles, all pulling in 135 data points each, including consumer selfies to train its computer vision algorithms.
It is available nationwide via prose.com and through select stylists.
The company is developing an automated customization infrastructure to be deployed mid-2019 in its newest facility, which opened in Brooklyn, New York three months ago. This new proprietary manufacturing system will have the capacity to customize up to 10,000 products per day enabling Prose to service more consumers than ever before.
FinSMEs
26/11/2018