Egypt’s Source Beauty raises pre-seed investment from 500 Startups for its beauty ecommerce platform

Cairo-based beauty ecommerce platform Source Beauty has raised a pre-seed investment from 500 Startups (500 Falcons), the startup announced in a statement without disclosing the size of the investment.

Launched in 2018, the platform sells beauty products for women with a focus on local millennial price-friendly products. The startup had originally started as a blog by its founder Lydia Schoonderbeek where she used to share her thoughts about the beauty products she used to use.

It now offers over 1500 products from 55 different brands and claims to have grown its sales orders seven-fold and revenues nine-fold since its launch.

“Over the past year, we have demonstrated viability of its business concept, fulfillment of a real market need, loyalty of a growing customer base, accelerated business performance,” the startup said in a statement.

Source Beauty has recently also introduced monthly beauty subscription boxes starting from EGP 500 (~$32) using which its customers can order makeup, skincare, and haircare products for the entire month in one go.

Lydia Schoonderbeek, the half-Dutch half-Egyptian founder of Source Book, said, “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 personalized 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.”

Commenting on the investment, she added, “We are very pleased to receive funding from 500 Startups to support Source Beauty on its growth journey. With a sustainable and scalable business model with substantial potential for further expansions, our strategy is to emulate Source Beauty’s concept in selected regional and global markets over the next three to five years.”

Sharif El-Badawi, Managing Partner, at 500 Startups (500 Falcons), said, “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 eccommerce beauty platform.”