TEL AVIV, ISRAEL--(Marketwire - Oct 9, 2012) - Preen.Me, the fastest growing social beauty site, closed an $800,000 round of seed funding from renowned international investors including Horizons Ventures, which manages the private venture investments of Mr. Li Ka-shing in the technology sector, Genesis Partners and Oren Zeev. The funding will help Preen.Me further grow its team and offering for its rapidly growing community of beauty enthusiasts.
Preen.Me is dedicated to helping women worldwide find and enjoy the beauty products that work for them. Using proprietary algorithms, Preen.Me will provide personalized recommendations based on the user's social graph and crowdsourcing that are genuinely objective and actionable. This formula radically impacts the $60 billion US beauty industry, in which women dispose of up to 75% of products they buy in the never ending hunt for product efficacy and satisfaction.
Preen.Me has a Facebook community of over 175,000 fans with a social engagement level three times that of some of the largest cosmetic brands in the world. After launching in June out of Silicon Valley Accelerator UpWest Labs, Preen.Me is already gaining serious traction, with astonishing user engagement rates.
"We believe that the highly innovative team at Preen.Me will play a major role in the coming digital revolution of the beauty industry," said Frank Meehan of Horizons Ventures.
"By creating a platform which enables women to learn from other women's experience, we're solving a multi-billion dollar problem: taking the guesswork out of buying beauty," said CEO and founder Tamar Yaniv. "We're not only addressing a massive industry that has yet to be fundamentally digitally disrupted, but we're connecting women to brands in ways that build trust, loyalty and instant credible referrals. If Preen.Me can help women pinpoint the right products for them every time they make a purchase, we will have done our jobs."
"We were attracted to Preen.Me's strong, accomplished management team, their unique approach to the beauty market, and its power to change the way women buy beauty products," said Dr. Eyal Kishon, managing partner at Genesis Partners. "We believe strongly in this team and the immediate, positive market response to Preen.Me's offering."
Preen.Me's executive team is headed by CEO and founder Tamar Yaniv, who spent the last decade working as an operations and marketing executive for the largest online gaming and pure internet sites in the world including PokerStars, bwin, and Seeking Alpha. Yaniv is joined by COO Haggai Klorman-Eraqi and CTO Nitzan Volman, both of whom have extensive technological and operational experience with Internet startups.
About Preen.Me:
Preen.Me aims to transform what is currently an inefficient $60 billion US beauty market into a modern marketplace. Women today are overwhelmed by product variety. The lack of personalization means that purchases are a hit or miss, and many purchases are unused or discarded. Utilizing social graphs and crowd sourcing, Preen.Me provides personalized product recommendations based on preferences of women with a similar profile. Offering a broad product variety, from budget to prestige, enables women to compare products at different price points on one web site. Preen.Me provides everything necessary to make a confident purchase, while creating the fun and engaging experience that buying beauty should be. Join the Preen.Me Community at www.Preen.Me, https://www.facebook.com/BeautyAddictsCommunity and on Twitter @preedotme.
About Genesis Partners:
Since 1996, Genesis Partners has stood at the forefront of the Israeli venture capital industry by successfully creating close relationships with exceptional entrepreneurs who work to build high potential, innovation-driven companies. Over four funds and with more than $600 M under management, Genesis Partners has invested in over 90 portfolio companies and has achieved more than 30 successful exits. By capitalizing on its partner's in-depth industry expertise and global network, implementing a disciplined investment strategy, and following sound due diligence processes, Genesis Partners has achieved unparalleled access to investment opportunities, and successful returns for its investors. Genesis Partners invests first and foremost in exceptional teams. At Genesis Partners -- it's all about the people. http://www.genesispartners.com/
About Horizons Ventures:
Based in Hong Kong, Horizons Ventures manages the Internet & technology investments of Mr. Li Ka-shing globally, and is an early investor in a number of household names such as Facebook, Spotify and Siri.
Contact Information:
Media Contact:
Susan Lindner
Emerging Media
212-922-5885
susan@emergingmediapr.com
