A London-based beauty and health booking platform has joined the UK unicorn club in a deal valued at more than $1 billion as the wider SaaS complex grapples with its own funeral.
London-based salon and spa booking and payment platform Fresha has raised $80 million in funds managed by KKR in a deal that values the company at more than $1 billion. said Thursday.
The round, set up as seed growth capital, makes Fresha a unicorn and brings its total raised since 2015 to $285 million.
A check is coming KKR’s Next Generation Technology Development Fundthe firm’s growth-equity arm, which writes to companies that are past the firm’s product-market fit stage and are seeking capital to scale beyond the runway.
The figures released by Fresha along with the announcement explain the appetite. The platform is used by more than 130,000 beauty and health businesses across the UK, Australia, the Gulf, North America and parts of Southeast Asia, processing more than 35 million appointments per month, or approximately 420 million appointments per year, against a combined annual revenue of $15 billion.
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Annual revenue is over $140 million, growing at over 60% per year, and the business is profitable. Fresha last disclosed a valuation of $640 million in its Series C expansion in late 2021.
Founded in 2015 by William Zeqiri and Nick Miller, Fresha has spent the last five years quietly displacing legacy customers in its core markets and pushing towards payments, equity and, more recently, AI-based scheduling and marketing tools.
In a statement, Zeqiri called reaching unicorn status a “proud milestone” and said the round will fund future global expansion and AI investment.
Miller, the company’s chief product officer, presented the round as validation from customers he said already use the platform as a core operational layer.
KKR’s diligence spanned more than a year and included surveys of more than 1,000 beauty and health businesses in the US, UK, Ireland, EU and Australia, as well as interviews with customers, former employees and competitors.
The study ranked Fresha first for software quality, ease of use, support, installation and market power, with an average score of 8.1 out of 10, compared to a competitor average of 6.7, according to KKR.
Patrick Devine, a partner in KKR’s Tech Growth team, said Fresha was founded “a distinctive platform that combines software, financial services and market capabilities with built-in AI.”
The director of the same team, Marta Szczerba, has been following the founders for years and “Very impressed with the consistent performance.”
The deal comes at an awkward time as the SaaS category sits within Fresha. Salesforce is down nearly 30% year-to-date, and the broader software suite has spent 2026 absorbing the argument. cost per seat is the wrong form for the AI cycle.
A vertical platform that earns revenue from fees and marketplace fees as well as subscriptions is seemingly the least controversial type of business, and that’s likely part of the conclusion KKR’s due diligence team came to.
Fresha said the new capital will drive its expansion in the US, continental Europe, Africa and Southeast Asia and AI features in booking automation, marketing, accounting and workforce management. The company did not disclose a planned timeline for the IPO or any additional fundraising.
