EGYPT – Source Beauty, a beauty e-commerce platform, has raised an undisclosed amount of pre-seed funding from 500 Falcons from 500 Falcons, a startup fund created by 500 Startups for North Africa and the Middle East, to help it grow and expand into new markets.
Founder of Source Beauty, Lydia Schoonderbeek said she was pleased to have received the funding, which would support Source Beauty on its growth journey. The strategy, she said, is to expand into regional and global markets in the next three to five years.
“Millennial consumers use social media platforms to keep up with beauty trends and for purchase motivation. Source Beauty guides them and focuses on building a personalised relationship with each of its customers’ beauty needs providing a user-friendly browsing and buying experience. Despite the current unfortunate pandemic situation, we have seen growth in our customer base and sales numbers,” she said.
“The local beauty market remains widely untapped and growing year-on-year at around 15-20 per cent. Keen on shaping the market while capturing a major share, we have introduced monthly beauty subscription boxes, a pillar in our value proposition, providing women with high-quality local alternatives that are affordable.”
Schoonderbeek said the startup planned to secure further investment within the next year to help it launch further initiatives.
500 Falcons managing partner Sharif El-Badawi said the company’s mission was to back talented entrepreneurs and help them create successful companies at scale.
“Our mission at 500 Startups is to back talented entrepreneurs and help them create successful companies at scale and Source Beauty is one such company. Despite the current Covid-19 situation, we are delighted to have invested in this e-commerce beauty platform. We wish Lydia and her team the very best and look forward to seeing them scale their business to the next level and excel in the near future,” he said.
Launched in 2018, Source Beauty sells beauty products at prices appropriate to the millennial market, and offers over 1,500 products from 55 different brands.
