(Photo: hair by hans van den berg)
#FPLive in association with KPMG presents… Lopo Champalimaud, CEO Wahanda.
Transforming Wahanda from an idea into the leading European beauty booking marketplace
For our first #FPLive of 2016, we welcome Wahanda CEO & Co-founder, Lopo Champalimaud.
Lopo is the Founder and CEO of Wahanda, Europe’s leading online booking platform for hair and beauty.
With almost 20,000 spas and salons across Europe, Wahanda is revolutionising the way people book their hair and beauty services. It allows customers to browse and instantly book beauty appointments, whilst its bespoke salon management software, Connect, offers a full business solution for salons and spas, helping drive bookings and optimise efficiency.
Raised in Lisbon and Montreal, Lopo studied at McGill University before moving into banking and private equity with Pictet and Wand Investments. Prior to founding Wahanda in 2008, Lopo was MD of Lifestyle at Lastminute.com, and the founder of two successful data and CRM start-ups in NYC.
While working at Lastminute.com, Lopo realised the potential for disruption within the €100bn health, wellness and beauty industry, which to that point had largely failed to join the internet revolution. Armed with a passion for wellness and experience working for high-growth technology firms, Lopo has since turned Wahanda into the biggest online beauty booking platform in Europe.
Wahanda is growing at over 300 percent year on year and the company is adding around 1,500 spas and salons every month. Wahanda acquired Germany’s Salonmeister in October 2014; completed the acqui-hire of the Lemon Labs team, the leading Lithuanian mobile app development agency, in January this year; acquired the team and assets of Austria’s Beautycheck in April and in June 2015 acquired the French beauty booking brand, Zensoon and the Dutch-firm Treatwell for €36.5m. The company now has a product offering in ten countries, with further plans for European expansion in the months ahead.
Japan’s Recruit Holdings recently invested over $171m, taking a majority stake in the company, and Wahanda is now poised to become the world’s leading online hair and beauty booking platform.
Lopo will describe the journey that he has taken Wahanda on from ideation all the way to the sale to Japan’s Recruit Holdings in May 2015.
Hear from Lopo as he talks through how he pushed Wahanda through some key milestones:
- The initial vision for Wahanda
- The first fundraise
- The launch of Wahanda daily deals
- The pivot to real-time appointments
- The sale to Recruit Holdings, Japan
- An expansion into 500 people in 10 countries
