MASAJ, a female-founded bodywork startup, has raised £1.5m in a round co-led by FIGR Ventures and Sorven Capital, with participation from angel investors including Giles Brook. Founded by Scarlet Amies and Alice Vaughan, MASAJ runs massage studios built to professionalise the treatment for guests and therapists alike. The round takes total funding to £2m.
Across the UK, massage is largely unregulated, fragmented and inconsistent, with no trusted brand delivering high-quality treatment at scale, while therapists typically work under a gig economy model that brings unpredictable work, little support and high turnover. MASAJ was founded to fix both problems at once, offering modern studios where every treatment is bespoke but delivered to the same standard, and selecting therapists for expertise, instinct and individual style before giving them the environment, conditions and stability to do their best work. That approach has produced 90% therapist retention, against an industry average of around 70%.
Over the past decade, fragmented wellness industries have consolidated around scaled specialist brands in categories including nails, brows, blow-dries and facials. Massage, a UK market worth at least £1.5bn a year, remains the exception, split between hotel spas, members clubs and independent single sites with no specialist leader.
Since launching on the high street in March 2021, MASAJ has delivered more than 110,000 hours of massage and grown to three studios, the latest a June opening in Islington. More than 15,000 five-star reviews have been earned on Fresha and Google, 40% of customers return monthly, and revenue grew 43% year-on-year in FY24/25, alongside partnerships and collaborations with the likes of Nike, Gymshark and Home House.
The funding will drive team growth, new London locations over the next 12 months, and working capital to keep opening at pace, with a longer-term ambition to build the category-defining modern bodywork brand in the UK and then beyond. FIGR Ventures becomes the first women-led fund on the cap table, with Managing Director Fiona O'Callaghan taking a seat on the board.
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.
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.
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.
