Middle East Venture Partners (MEVP) announced today it has partially exited from its investment in Fresha, a top beauty and wellness software platform, with a secondary sale in the company’s $100 million Series C round led by General Atlantic.

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In 2015 MEVP became Fresha’s first institutional investor with seed financing, and subsequently led a $6 million Series A round in the company in 2017. Fresha went on to raise a $20 million Series B round in 2019 led by Paris-based Partech with participation from Berlin’s Target Global and Dubai-based BECO Capital, followed by a recent Series C round of $100 million led by New York’s General Atlantic in June 2021.

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Fresha allows consumers to discover, book and pay for beauty and wellness appointments with local businesses via its marketplace, while salons, spas and barbershops can leverage Fresha to manage their operations with its intuitive, subscription-free business software. The Fresha platform removes the critical pain points that service-based businesses often encounter by seamlessly facilitating the acceptance of online appointment bookings, processing of card payments and management of customer records, along with automations for marketing, staffing, product inventory and accounting, all in one place. In addition to its free offering, Fresha Plus provides partners with additional advanced features; rather than a traditional subscription model, the company collects fees on the usage of features for card payment processing and online bookings.

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Launched by founders William Zeqiri and Nick Miller, Fresha is currently used by 50,000 partner businesses globally, processing $12 billion in appointment volumes to date.

Riyad Abou Jaoudeh Junior Partner at MEVP, noted “Fresha is a great example of how an amazing product, backed by strong execution and smart business model can achieve breakout global success. Fresha is now present in 120 countries, powering tens of millions of appointment bookings each month.”

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“We’re thankful for MEVP’s continued support which stretches back to the early days of Fresha. The firm’s sizable return from their recent exit shows that their strong belief in the company from the outset, paired with a founder friendly ethos, was a winning approach.” said Fresha Founder and CEO William Zeqiri.

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MEVP has generated a 39x Cash-on-Cash multiple over the 5 years holding period, this is an 88% Internal Rate of Return (IRR), from their partial exit in Fresha. Following the exit, the Dubai-based venture capital firm continues to own a sizable stake in Fresha. “We participated in the secondary sale at the request of the lead investor to support the company in its Series C; we believe the team at Fresha will continue to deliver on a massive growth potential to reach “unicorn” status, especially with the support of reputable investors like General Atlantic.” said Walid Hanna, CEO of MEVP.

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