Shopping for skincare can be overwhelming and impersonal

The beauty industry is worth over $517B+, yet has the lowest online penetration when compared to electronics and fashion. When it comes to skincare, shopping can be a particularly overwhelming experience, with thousands of brands and products to choose from. 

We surveyed over 300 women to learn that consumers struggle to know which products are best for their skin type and composition. Ultimately, they rely on referrals and unbiased professional advice to decide which products to buy. This requires shoppers to go to stores to try and test products, or speak with beauty consultants, which in turn, makes online skincare shopping nearly impossible for consumers to do with confidence.

After interviewing 300+ diverse women, we learned:

HelloAva: making online shopping for skincare personal

HelloAva is an innovative new platform that uses AI technology to provide a personalized skincare and haircare experience to shoppers. Like brick and mortar stores, we provide skin analysis, educational and professional consultations with licensed estheticians, personalized product recommendations, and a fully stocked online inventory for customers to purchase items. We use algorithms to give our customers professional and  unbiased beauty advice that helps them purchase the products they need with confidence.

Personalized skincare recommendations delivered to you in 5 simple steps

Our algorithm is designed to offer users a highly personalized shopping experience that helps them identify their skincare needs and matches them with recommended products. From there, they can decide to purchase products and refill at a discount.

How HelloAva works

How the AI algorithm works

20% monthly user growth rate

Since launch, HelloAva has accumulated new users with an average 20% monthly growth rate. We currently have 64K users on our platform, with 12% completing purchases and over 60% returning to purchase recommended products.

We’ve also received traction in the media, including coverage in major outlets and industry publications.

94% of customers are satisfied with their purchase

Our personalized approach to skincare ensures that we are reaching the needs of a diverse customer base. This is helping us engage and maintain users on our platform, and ensure that shoppers are satisfied with their experience.  

Revenue from sales, advertising, and consultations

HelloAva has established strong partnerships with 80+ trusted brands within the beauty industry. This has allowed us to bring the best products to customers at a wholesale price. Through this model, we see:

• A 50% product margin on wholesale goods sold on our platform

• Advertising by brands direct to our consumers and sales of user data and purchase analytics to our retail and brand partners

• $10 consultation fee with an expert dermatologist

• White labeling AI technology to enable CPG conglomerates and retailers (such as Unilever) - see more on this partnership here: https://glossy.co/beauty/unilever-tackles-personalization-with-ai-startup-helloava

Our burn rate continues to decrease and we project profitability in 2020:

Each box brings close to 42% gross margin:

Record spending on beauty 

The beauty industry is on track to be worth over $863B+ in the next four years. Currently, online sales are only a small part of that market. We believe that our segment of the market -- the online shoppers -- will only continue to grow in the next few years.

HelloAva is the only company using AI to provide instant, personal skincare recommendations

More users, better technology

Upon meeting our fundraising goals, HelloAva will focus on growing our user base and enhancing our technology to provide even more specific recommendations to our customers. We also plan to expand into other product areas, such as hair (currently in beta). 

HelloAva is funded by leading institutional and angel investors

• Gingerbread Capital - part of the family office of KKR founder (Zola, Ellevest, Coffee meets bagel, Skimm)

• DHVC (Optimizely) 

• SoGal Ventures (Function of Beauty, Everlywell, Little Spoon), 

• Long Venture Partners (Senreve, Amplitude, Numerai)

• Eric Ye (C-Trip former CTO), Su Chen (Two Sigma Managing Director), Collin Wallace (Founding Team of Seamless), Neil Arora (Partner, Momi Bay Group)

Siqi Mou, CEO and Co-Founder

Forbes 30 Under 30, Inc. 30 Under 30, Morgan Stanley, Bloomberg TV, PIMCO, Stanford MBA, Harvard University Master, Stanford Undergraduate. 

     

Kailu Guan, CCO and Co-Founder

IDEO, Intel, Hermes, Parsons School of Design, Central Saint Martins College of the Arts

William Zhang, CTO and Co-Founder

Goldman Sachs, Microsoft, Credit Suisse, Amazon, Master of CS at Columbia University