Beauty booking startup Fresha hits $1 billion valuation with KKR backing

Beauty and wellness booking marketplace Fresha has announced an $80 million investment from KKR’s Next Generation Technology Growth fund, valuing the London-based company at more than $1 billion. The investment is notable for coming from KKR’s growth equity arm, which targets companies with proven business models that are still in aggressive expansion mode — a sign that Fresha is seen as past the risky early stages and ready to scale. The London-based company, founded in 2015, has grown significantly over the past few years. When TechCrunch covered a Fresha fundraising round in 2021, the company had 60,000 businesses on its platform and was working with more than 150,000 professionals across 120 countries. Today, the platform counts more than 140,000 businesses and says those businesses are booking more than 35 million appointments a month through Fresha. That volume — more than a billion appointments annually — puts it among the larger scheduling platforms of any kind, not just within beauty and wellness.