Twin Founders Of Genius AI Raise Series D Funding, Valued At $1.15 Billion

Aug 06, 2026 07:29 PM - 2 hours ago 2

Danielle and Leah Cohen-Shohet, co-founders and copy sisters down Genius AI, person conscionable raised $44 cardinal successful Series D funding, boosting them to unicorn status. I said pinch the brace to understand really they grew GlossGenius, a salon booking and payments platform, into Genius AI – now weighted astatine $1.15 billion.

Before becoming 1 half of the latest female-founded unicorn company, Danielle Cohen-Shohet, co-founder and CEO astatine Genius AI, worked arsenic an expert astatine Goldman Sachs pinch her copy sister Leah, Genius AI’s main business officer. The thought for GlossGenius, their flagship product, started from a vexation pinch tedious and time-consuming admin, coupled pinch a passion for beauty.

“The problem is individual for us,” Danielle told me. “We grew up watching our dada tally a aesculapian practice. He was profoundly passionate astir his work, but ever spent nights and weekends handling tasks he didn’t emotion – reviewing the books, charting, diligent follow-ups, and ads successful the phonebook.

“In college, we started a task focused connected digitizing receipts astatine the constituent of sale, which sparked our liking successful payments. At the aforesaid time, my method inheritance and liking successful the beauty manufacture led america to spot an opportunity to build a package and payments level for beauty professionals,” she said.

The copy founders person travel a agelong measurement from building a merchandise successful their assemblage days. Genius AI, the caller marque sanction for the business, has raised much than $125 cardinal successful capital. The latest backing information was led by Lux Capital, pinch further finance from Bessemer Venture Partners, Imaginary Ventures, L Catterton Growth, 2048 Ventures, StepStone Private Ventures, and others.

Now, Genius AI bills itself arsenic a exertion level for in-person work businesses, and has reached a $1.15 cardinal valuation.

“Service professionals are among the astir skilled and entrepreneurial group successful the economy, yet galore are still held backmost by fragmented systems and hours of administrative work,” said Danielle.

“We built GlossGenius to springiness beauty and wellness professionals much clip to attraction connected their clients and their craft. As we grew, it became clear that the aforesaid situation exists crossed the broader work economy,” she said.

Yet they’re not the only providers successful the market. Operators for illustration Phorest, Vagaro, Mindbody, and moreover owned websites let beauty professionals to shape their bookings, cod payments, and negociate clients, immoderate pinch a much affordable value point. According to the founders, the cardinal differentiator of GlossGenius is that they’re built for the practitioner. “We build their brand, not ours. We’re not a marketplace,” Leah told me.

“We triumph erstwhile they win, and our pricing is designed to connection them the astir value,” she added.

Scale and maturation has been a apical strategical attraction for the founders. They opportunity they service much than 125,000 businesses connected the platform, crossed half of each US zip codes. “We were capable to bootstrap initially because we had a maniacal attraction connected solving existent problems for customers pinch businesslike portion economics,” Leah said.

“One of the challenges we had starting retired was pinch getting business owners to spot exertion pinch their astir important relationships. That was why truthful galore were connected pen and insubstantial astatine the time. Businesses were capable to spot the worth successful clip they could prevention and walk connected their clients, which helped america build trust,” she explained.

Now, pinch their further $44 cardinal successful funding, they scheme connected expanding their merchandise and customer base.

While the squad is expanding their scope beyond the beauty curen booking platform, seeing the beardown opportunity AI offers to seizure a larger portion of the wider work industry, they support that the ngo of their business is still human-led. “I’ve spoken to tens of thousands of customers and business owners, and they each stock the aforesaid dream: to walk much clip doing the activity they love. A practitioner’s hands-on expertise, judgment, and relationship pinch a customer can’t beryllium automated. But AI tin grip galore of the tasks that propulsion them distant from those moments,” Danielle said.

For founders looking to raise capital, she shared her advice: “Be clear astir what the superior will let you to prove. Raise against circumstantial milestones, take investors who stock your semipermanent view, and don’t fto the readiness of superior substitute for focus.”

For business owners building AI products correct now, Danielle advised to take a problem for the customer that genuinely matters, and gain the spot required to lick much of that problem complete time.

“Pick the 2 aliases 3 questions connected which the institution lives aliases dies, and garbage to fto your answers travel from anyone but the earthy source. Your exemplary of the business tin ne'er beryllium secondhand.”