Engee Wellness Raises Pre-series A Round Of Funding From Group Of Investors
Engee Wellness which runs India’s first Foot Only Reflexology chain under the brand “Thai Way Foot Spa & Reflexology” has raised pre-series A round from group of investors including Amit Rana, Founding Partner of Outbox Ventures, Sumeet Kapur, founder of nearbuy, Vineet Singh, Chief Business Officer Mobikwik, Saurabh Mittal, CFO, S Chand and Amit Singhal, Founder Start-Up Buddy. The company currently runs its 2 outlets in Gurgaon and will be opening 5 more outlets with this funding round to expand at all premium high foot fall locations in Delhi / NCR.
The company has been bootstrapped by Nishant Singhal and Geetika Dhawan since January 2017 and they opened the first outlet in Gurgaon in March 2017. Geetika has over 12 years work experience in operations, quality management, sales and marketing with corporates like Jindal Group, Puravankara and QVC Realty. Nishant Singhal is a Chartered Accountant and has worked with PwC, Investors Clinic and cofounded Youwecan Ventures, a venture fund with ace cricketer Yuvraj Singh.
“With over 400 clients visits every month per outlet and repeat rate of over 40%, we have grabbed 5% online booking market share in Gurgaon and have emerged as No. 1 wellness provider by customer ratings on Nearbuy.com within 4 months of operations,” said Geetika Dhawan.
A high 46% of the workforce in organisations in India suffers from some of the other form of stress, according to the latest data from Optum, a top provider of employee assistance programmes to corporates. Optum's study had a sample size of 200,000 employees (over 30 large employers) who took an online Health Risk Assessment during the first quarter of 2016. Also, pain relief with the market size of over 1700 crores, is the largest category among OTC drugs market in India. Thai Way’s business model addresses both stress management and pain relief as part of their therapy portfolio.
“Very, unfortunately, Indian Spa Industry is not respected and taken seriously, the reason being some spas trying to make the extra buck by doing so-called ‘extra services’ behind the curtains. Hence, this is depriving the segment which is genuinely looking for the stress relieving and healing therapies, like foot reflexology and alternate healing therapies by trained and professional therapists. Our idea is to break the stigma wall hovering around Indian spa industry and present the consumer with a neat and clean set up, with only motive to give the consumer a relaxing and rejuvenating experience” said Geetika Dhawan.
Financial Information
Our business model requires low capex of $25000 per outlet with monthly cash breakeven at $4500 revenue only. Our outlets achieve total cash break even by 3rd month of operations. We are already in advanced stages of discussion to raise $3 mn for creating a Pan India Foot Spa & Reflexology chain with over 100 outlets in next 18 to 24 months. We will achieve annual revenue of over $7 million and net profit margin of over 20% with over 100 outlets. Foot Spa & Reflexology is among very few opportunities to create a pan India retail consumer service brand with limited capital investment and yet generate high-profit margins” said Nishant Singhal.
“We have significantly avoided cash burn on marketing by leveraging online platforms like Nearbuy and Little App as part of our offline to online enablement strategy. These platforms besides contributing over 30% of our revenues are also helping us generate leads based on geo-targeting and providing us extremely valuable customer ratings” said Nishant Singhal
The company has also launched its range of 100% organic products under the brand “Thai Way Organics” like body scrub, face pack, and massage oil to be sold through outlets and will be contributing over 20% of total revenues with high cash profit margins.
Global Outlook
In China modern foot massage, acupressure and reflexology practices – according to Dr Yang Yuliang of Fudan University – now constitute an RMB 20 Billion ($3.3 Billion) annual industry.
It is widely known that the Chinese beauty and wellness market is very large and growing fast. The 370,200 salons and spas in the US are dwarfed by China's 1.72 million salons/spas with their 9 million employees. In addition, it has also been turning in double-digit growth rates of over 12% for many years now. The top ten companies combined operate over 14,000 units across China.
Care for the face and the body is the backbone of the salon and spa sector in China as elsewhere. The large chain operated a segment of the salon and spa sector is outperforming the market because these salons and spas attract the biggest spenders on beauty and wellness in China - the young, urban trendsetters who pay a premium for quality therapies and products.
Traditional Therapy Clinics (TTC) based in China just over 350 Foot Spa & Reflexology outlets are listed on Australian Stock Exchange with over $50 mn market capitalisation. TTC is employing around 1,000 staff across 27 of the 33 administrative divisions in China.
