MASAJ, the bodywork brand founded by Scarlet Amies and Alice Vaughan to professionalise massage for guests and therapists alike, has raised £1.5m in a round co-led by FIGR Ventures, the London-based early-stage consumer fund, and Sorven Capital, with participation from angel investors including Giles Brook. The funding takes MASAJ’s total raised to £2m and will fund new studio openings across London over the next 12 months as the company moves to become the first scaled brand in massage.
The news comes as the UK’s legacy massage industry sits on shaky foundations. For customers, the market is fragmented and inconsistent, with little regulation and no trusted brand delivering high-quality treatment at scale. For therapists, the profession is often built on a gig economy model, meaning unpredictable work, little support and high staff turnover. MASAJ was founded to fix the two interrelated problems at once.
Tapping the last unscaled wellness category
The opportunity follows a proven playbook. Over the past decade, fragmented wellness industries have consolidated around scaled specialist brands in categories such as nails, brows, blow-dries and facials. Massage – a UK market worth at least £1.5bn a year1 – is the exception, split between hotel spas, members clubs and independent single sites with no specialist leader – a gap that MASAJ aims to fill.
The brand’s modern, welcoming studios offer guests a space for stillness in a high-stress world, with every treatment bespoke but delivered to the same standard. Therapists, meanwhile, are selected for expertise, instinct and individual style, and given the environment, conditions and stability to do their best work – reflected in MASAJ’s 90% therapist retention, against an industry average of around 70%.
The business has earned more than 15,000 five-star reviews on Fresha and Google, 40% of customers return monthly, and its revenue grew 43% year-on-year in FY24/25. Since launching on the high street in March 2021, the business has delivered more than 110,000 hours of massage, grown its footprint to three studios – the latest a June opening in Islington – and secured partnerships and collaborations with the likes of Nike, Gymshark, and Home House, amongst others.
A rare kind of round
The funding will drive a new phase of business expansion, including team growth, new London locations over the next 12 months, and building working capital to keep opening at pace – with a longer-term ambition to build the category-defining modern bodywork brand, first in the UK and then beyond.
The round is also a milestone for the cap table. FIGR Ventures – which backs responsible, early-stage consumer businesses combining impact and commercial return – becomes the first women-led fund to invest, with Managing Director Fiona O’Callaghan taking a seat on the board. In a venture industry where all-women founding teams still receive just 2% of investment, a women-led fund backing a women-founded business is rare.
Scarlet Amies, CEO and co-founder of MASAJ, says: “London’s wellness market is fragmented, with no trusted brand delivering consistently high-quality massage at scale. We set out to fix that – with modern, welcoming studios that offer a crucial place for stillness, where every guest gets a brilliant treatment every time, and where therapists get stable, well-supported careers rather than gig-economy instability. This funding will help us bring that to many more corners of London.”
“When I set out to find aligned investors, my dream was a fund as invested in our mission as in our margins. We have two in FIGR and Sorven – mission-driven funds who truly understand the product and the gap in the market, and back founders with more than capital. They’re hands-on, engaged and perfectly aligned with what we’re building.”
Fiona O’Callaghan, Managing Director of FIGR Ventures, comments: “Over the past decade, we’ve seen hyper-specialist brands transform one beauty and wellness category after another – but the massage industry was a huge gap, until MASAJ. Scarlet and Alice understood that the sector was in deep need of transformation and professionalisation and that’s exactly what they’re doing. When you treat therapists with care, they’re better set up to do their best for guests, building the consistency and trust that means they keep coming back – the foundation for a standout, scalable business.”
Mark Philip-Sorenson, CEO and founder of Sorven Capital, adds: “Massage has long needed the same professionalisation we’ve seen sweep through the rest of wellness. Scarlet and Alice aren’t just building studios, they’re building a career path, turning what’s been a gig-economy job into a role that’s meaningful and valued. That’s rare, and it’s exactly the kind of team, with clear goals and real ambition, that we back at Sorven. We’re excited to keep supporting them as they take this model to all corners of London and beyond.”
