There’s a new female-founded unicorn. GlossGenius, which
started as a salon management platform, just raised $44 million at a $1.15 billion valuation as it pivots to build AI operations for all service businesses, with a new name: Genius AI.
Run by 36-year-old twin sisters Danielle Cohen-Shohet and Leah Cohen-Shohet, GlossGenius-turned-Genius AI has traditionally served as a booking, scheduling, and payments platform for beauty professionals. Danielle Cohen-Shohet, the company’s original founder and CEO, identified a much bigger opportunity: AI-powered software that will run businesses for any kind of service professional.
“The problem we’re here to solve is really the same. How do we make it as easy as possible for business owners to run their businesses?” she asks. “How do we take away this dreaded work that keeps these businesses from the things they love doing and spending time with clients?”
GlossGenius had started to attract other kinds of service providers beyond salons—spa owners, massage therapists, chiropractors, and acupuncturists. Now it sees an even bigger opportunity in “health-adjacent” verticals, like med spas, physical therapists, and fitness businesses.
“What are these more human businesses, the ones where we like to say the genius is the practitioner, and the clients come for them?” Danielle asks.
Lux Capital led the Series D round, with participation from Bessemer Venture Partners, Imaginary Ventures, L Catterton Growth, and more returning investors. The company has now raised more than $120 million since it was founded a decade ago. There are 125,000 businesses using the platform. And Genius AI itself is a sizable company, with 400 employees. It says its annual revenue is nearing $200 million—more than its lifetime capital raised—and it facilitates $7 billion in sales each year.
Other businesses are identifying the same opportunity to build agentic software for service providers as the new Genius AI. I just wrote last week about Corner Health, which raised $25 million
to build AI-run businesses for nurse practitioners. It’s easy to see why founders and investors are looking closely at this category: running a small business comes with so much admin work, and freeing up practitioners from that work is an appealing prospect for today’s business owners and the many, many more who would strike out on their own were running an independent business less intimidating. Many of these solopreneurs or small-business owners are women; women
start about half of new businesses in the U.S., but those operations are less likely to scale.
Genius AI has a HIPAA-compliant product (just like GlossGenius will now be one product within Genius AI), but is starting with “health-adjacent” rather that true health care providers for now. But competing in the health care space could be on the roadmap. “I don’t see why the opportunity can’t extend to that,” Danielle says.
Danielle and Leah argue that Genius AI has a head start over competitors coming into the space. “We’ve been serving these businesses, we understand these workflows and their pain points really deeply,” Leah says.
Danielle makes the argument that AI could transform these solo-practitioner “Main Street” businesses faster than it is transforming large enterprises. After all, many large business struggle to create a cohesive AI strategy, with different departments deploying different tools at different speeds. “It’s much easier for businesses that are smaller in scale to gather a lot of the context and have AI start to make them much, much more productive,” she says.
And while consumers may still be wary of interacting with AI rather than their favorite provider, Danielle argues that the customer will get more from their favorite hairstylist or massage therapist.
“AI is something that shouldn’t be sanding them down and making them more generic, but bringing out their genius and helping them be more present with their clients,” she says.
Emma Hinchliffeemma.hinchliffe@fortune.comThe Most Powerful Women Daily newsletter is Fortune’
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