Holistic hair care platform Traya has raised $2.2 million in a pre-Series A funding round, led by Fireside Ventures, with participation from existing investors Kae Capital and Whiteboard Capital. Traya has taken upon itself to bring about a change in the hair industry by providing a holistic solution to manage hair loss. The company said it will use the funds to strengthen research and development, build cutting edge technology to personalise the hair growth experience and acquire talent and expand brand reach.
Kannan Sitaram, Partner at Fireside Ventures, will join the company’s board.
The current hair industry is flooded with hair fall products without any clinical efficacy. A one product for all approach can never work for hair loss or for that matter any chronic health issue. Hair loss escalation can be because of multiple root causes and the solutions offered through shampoos, serums, etc., do not get to the root cause of an individual’s hair loss. ‘Traya’ in Sanskrit refers to the threefold way, which is precisely what the brand utilises to manage hair loss. By marrying the science & clinically proven results of western medicine with Ayurveda and food science, Traya helps people identify type, stage and root cause and then puts together a treatment plan accordingly. An ayurvedic doctor and a dermatologist are assigned to each case to track, tweak and prescribe the most suitable plan. Their diet, combined with a proprietary no-side effects formula, helps people manage these root causes, along with hair growth, for long lasting results.
Traya takes responsibility for the results. Its proprietary hair diagnosis (Dx), after managing lakhs of data sets, can now predict time to see results and flag cases that cannot be helped. This has helped Traya achieve a 93% efficacy, also making it the only brand to have a 5-month money back guarantee on hair loss. On an average, customers on Traya’s recommended plan notice a change in hair growth in 5 months.
Altaf Saiyed, Co-founder at Traya commented, “Having gone through it personally, I know how difficult it is to first accept that one has hair loss & to ask for help. The market is cluttered with wrongful claims, and one tends to believe nothing can be done. Hair loss or hair fall is not a cosmetic problem, it’s a medical problem that needs a diagnosis and doctors and that is what we are here to change. In fact, of the 1,00,000 + cases Traya has handled last year, 76% had digestion issues, 78% had dandruff issues, 52% had anemia, 36% had IBS, 22% had thyroid, and 16% had PCOS. The most common type of hair loss was the male pattern hair loss (around 70%) which was genetic in nature but further escalated by stress, sleep issues and more.
We used our seed funding to build the unique process and products here at Traya to prove the efficacy at scale. Our fresh round of funding will help us take our holistic approach to other stubborn diseases that an average 30-year-old Indian faces. Additionally, we will build our tech further to provide the best support to help customers stick to the regimen. While we will also invest in clinical trials of new unique formulations to further improve the efficacy of the treatment, Traya’s ultimate goal is to provide the youth with a well-rounded, healthy life.”
VS Kannan Sitaram, Partner at Fireside Ventures said, “Indians, especially men, are losing hair at a fairly young age nowadays and this has a significant impact on self-esteem and confidence. Hair loss is a complex issue that cannot be solved just by topical applications like shampoos and serums. It needs a holistic approach covering diet, nutrition, lifestyle apart from topical applications. Altaf and Saloni have developed enormous expertise in understanding hair loss and developed a unique business model including multiple sciences, consultation, coaching and a suite of products and have demonstrated success in solving hair loss issues. We at Fireside are very excited to work with the Traya team and believe this could be a disruption at a global level.”
