NEW DELHI: Cricketer Yuvraj Singh's investment fund YouWeCan Ventures has put in an undisclosed amount as seed funding in a mobile phone-based beauty and wellness platform Vyomo, which is seeking to replicate the success of taxisharing services such as Uber and Ola. Vyomo will work as an aggregator of salons, spas and stylists on its e-commerce platform in a model similar to that of Uber and Ola that have taxis enrolled on their platforms to offer services.

"We would like to support empowerment of millions of beauty professionals and help them improve their lives and income, and be part of their personal milestones," said Singh, talking about his recently-launched firm's first investment. The beauty and wellness grooming ecommerce platform is expected to go live in India and Dubai simultaneously later this month.

Earlier this month, Singh, the Indian Premier League's costliest player this season, announced that he will float a venture fund that will aim to support young entrepreneurs by investing in start-ups across sectors including healthcare, sports products, services and fashion, travel and tourism, hospitality and e-commerce.

The cricketer plans to invest about Rs 50 crore, mostly his own money, over 3-5 years in YouWeCan Ventures while the fund is expected to raise about Rs 300 crore from other investors during this period.

Within three months of its launch, Vyomo plans to enlist about 5,000 spas and saloons in Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai and Dubai, and plans tobring more than one million stylists on the platform by 2017.

"For salons and spas, the duration between 2pm and 5 pm is an underutilised capacity, and with Vyomo, they can manage their inventory in a dynamic manner and offer discounts during those hours," said Nishant Singhal, co-founder of You-WeCan Ventures. "We want to replicate the success of Uber and Ola in the beauty and wellness sector."

Vyomo will compete with established player Purplle that secured an undisclosed funding from Mumbai-based venture fund IvyCap Ventures.

"Signing up with YouWeCan Ventures for securing our seed funding is an important milestone for the company that will allow us to scale up and expand to meet the demands of our global users," said Abhinav Khare, founder and CEO of Vyomo.

"Our aim is to create a complete solution for beauty professionals to manage and grow their business through a smartphone and for customers to book appointments instantly through their mobile devices, and ultimately repeat the success story of tech start-ups in cab industry."

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