yuv raises £9.5m Series A to roll out app-connected hair-colour dispensers
This article covers yuv, a healthtech startup, which has closed a £9.5m Series A to accelerate its UK rollout and prepare for a planned US launch in 2026. The funding is intended to scale its app-connected dispensing platform for salons and freelance hairdressers, replacing single-use colour tubes with refillable cartridges and enabling a subscription model to improve consistency and reduce waste.
yuv has closed a Series A to accelerate its UK rollout and prepare for a planned US launch in 2026. The London-founded company sells an app-connected dispensing platform for professional hair colour that replaces single-use tubes with refillable cartridges, aiming to improve consistency for salons and freelance stylists while cutting waste.
Why it matters
The announcement highlights a move by a hardware-plus-software beauty platform to shift salon colour services onto a subscription and cartridge model. That matters because salon services remain a large and growing market globally, and incumbents that can combine precise dispensing with digital control may change margins and supply chains for an industry still reliant on single-use products.
Market forecasts cited by the company put the salon hair care services market rising from $203.78bn in 2025 to $341.67bn by 2032, underlining the commercial opportunity for systems that promise efficiency and waste reduction.
Inside the product
yuv’s core product is the yuv Lab, a compact dispensing unit paired with refillable aluminium cartridges and a mobile app. The system is positioned as a way to replace single-use colour tubes with a refillable format, delivering measured doses and configurable formulas at the touch of a button.
Technically, the company combines patented hardware, AI-powered software, and Swiss-designed formulations. The claimed benefits are more consistent colour results, reduced formulation waste, and a subscription revenue route for salons and freelance hairdressers. The cartridge and app model also shifts salons away from stocking multiple single-use tubes, which may simplify inventory and reduce packaging waste.
Who are the investors?
Who are the investors?
The Series A round was led by Nineyards Equity, a Sweden-based growth equity firm that says it targets high-impact, ESG-focused companies. Existing investor VNV Global, founder Francisco Gimenez and a network of strategic angel investors also participated.
The company has said the new capital will fund an accelerated UK rollout and preparation for a US market entry in 2026. The announcement also referenced yuv’s profile-raising appearance on Dragons’ Den, where the company secured an offer that set a record for the show’s valuation history.
In the announcement, Francisco Gimenez, founder and CEO of yuv, said:
This raise represents a pivotal moment for yuv. With the support of Nineyards Equity, VNV Global, and our investor network, we are doubling down on our mission to transform professional hair colour through sustainability, design and technology. Our next chapter will bring the yuv platform to more salons and freelancers across the UK, and soon to the US, where we see massive potential.
In the announcement, Eric Sävendahl, principal at Nineyards Equity, said:
At Nineyards, we back category-defining companies with the potential to reshape their industries. yuv is bringing genuine digital transformation to professional hair colour by combining hardware, colour and software into a platform that solves real pain points for salons and freelancing hairdressers. We are highly impressed by what Francisco and the team have accomplished so far and are excited to support them as they scale in the UK, US and beyond.
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Founder perspective
yuv’s founder and CEO frames the round as a step to scale distribution and the subscription model rather than a pivot in product. The company stresses sustainability and design as differentiators for salons and independent stylists, and intends to use the capital to deploy devices, cartridges and software to new customers across the UK before entering the US market.
The bigger picture
This deal sits at the intersection of several trends in the UK and European tech ecosystem: investor appetite for hardware-plus-software consumer platforms, growing interest in ESG-linked business models, and the visibility that consumer-facing TV exposure can bring to an early-stage company. For UK startups targeting professional beauty services, traction with salons and a clear service model will be key to converting pilot deployments into recurring revenue. Cross-border investors such as Nineyards show that European growth capital remains available for consumer and device-led ventures with strong product economics and sustainability claims.
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