When Matt Danna, the CEO of Boulevard, and one of his buddies, Sean Stavropoulos, were working together at an L.A. startup back in 2015, Danna would tease Stavropoulos about his long hair.
Stavropoulos took it in stride, confessing he would go months without a haircut, because he never could find the time to call any salons and set up an appointment during their regular business hours.
The duo began to wonder why the salon industry had not evolved digitally as much as other industries. They started to visit L.A. salons and ask questions.
Turns out, many of the salons were using technology, but it was “antiquated and awful,” Danna said.
The front desk staff was often “very frustrated” and stylists ended up with gaps in their schedules, “a revenue killer.”
“We knew there had to be a better way,” Danna told L.A. Inno. So, the duo started creating their own technology.
In 2015, their new endeavor had enough traction that they both quit their jobs and started to work full-time on what would become Boulevard.
Since then, their software platform has expanded beyond just scheduling appointments and processing payments, to include everything a self-care business needs to run — including marketing and financial reporting.
Their curiosity and hard work continues to pay off. The company just closed on a $70 million Series C round, led by Point72 Private Investments. Other investors included Toba Capital, Index Ventures, Bonfire Ventures and VMG Partners.
That brings their total fundraising to $110 million since the company first launched in 2016.
Boulevard plans to use the funds to hire more engineers and software developers, expedite the launch of new platform features and expand into new self-care verticals, like medical spas.
Spending on self-care soars
Despite inflation and high gas prices, spending on self-care is up, Danna said.
The pandemic illustrated that self-care is not really considered a luxury anymore. Since businesses started opening up, self-care has been integrated into a lot of people’s weekly and monthly routines.
“That’s why you see so many self-care businesses now offering memberships,” he said.
The lockdowns also catalyzed many self-care businesses to focus on how to interact with their clients more efficiently and how to engage with them online.
“It was a much needed wake-up call for some of the last holdouts to digitize their businesses,” Danna said. “As a result, Boulevard actually saw significant growth throughout the pandemic as many self-care businesses took advantage of that time to upgrade to a modern system.”
White-hot growth
Boulevard achieved torrid growth last year, more than tripling the size of its customer base and posting a 188% year-over-year increase in annual recurring revenue.
That reflects the continued momentum of the personal care and beauty market — which includes hair and nail salons, along with barbers and spas. It’s expected to exceed $1.4 trillion by 2025.
Boulevard also offers a menu of business management and reporting tools to enable business owners to keep an eye on sales, inventory and team productivity.
The company currently processes more than $1 billion in payments annually. More than 25,000 health and beauty professionals in 2,000 salons and spas across the country use Boulevard.
Perks of being in L.A.
Being headquartered in L.A. has proven to be a huge advantage to Boulevard, Danna said. It helps that it’s the epicenter of balayage, a hair highlighting technique, and Botox, an aesthetic filler.
“We were able to visit and talk to some of the world’s most successful self-care businesses,” Danna said. “And their expertise and feedback was invaluable as we worked on our first version of the product. Since then, we have gone fully remote. However, 35% of (our employees) live in and around the L.A. area."
