A Stafford tech start-up has secured £500,000 funding after being valued at £5 million.
Aesthetics and beauty app Faces Consent was launched two-and-half years ago by entrepreneurs Ben O'Brien and Ashley Simpson-Davies as an app designed to house the consent forms for their own private aesthetic clinic.
The pair soon realised that other practitioners were eager to use their technology, so they granted free access to help build a critical mass of users.
Since then, Faces Consent has seen impressive growth with over 45,000 registered users – 90 per cent of which are based in the UK.
Now it has secured Series A funding from first-time investors Social Money. The investment is the latest round of funding for Faces Consent, which secured £90,000 six months ago.
In exchange for the £500,000, the founders are giving 10 per cent of their business to Social Money, which is the parent company of millennial buy now, pay later finance firm Payl8r and bridge lending business SoMo.
Ben O’Brien, co-founder and managing director at Faces Consent, said: "This is a sizable investment for Faces, and one that can help transform our growing business. We plan to make more hires to strengthen our tech team and to further develop our plans to launch our own pharmaceutical product range.
"What's really exciting about this investment is the added value we get through Social Money's expertise. The team has really strong tech expertise and is always one step ahead of the market. Together we make a formidable team."
While the app is free, Faces Consent has a range of commercial partnerships which bring in revenue. It currently sees an average of £20,000 of pharmaceutical sales each day as practitioners purchase products such as toxins and fillers directly within the app. This figure is likely to increase as Faces Consent expands its product range.
Louis Alexander, owner and director of Social Money Ltd, said: "This is the first time that Social Money has invested outside of our business. It's not something that we were actively seeking to do, but when an opportunity as strong as this comes along, you have to take it."
