The rumors are true. The Samwer brothers, who are famous for executing the perfect copycat startup, have now jumped onto the BirchBox train, creating GlossyBox, their own European clone of the beauty product subscription service. The news was first reported by the German site Gruenderszene.
Over the last few months there have been several investors, incubators and entrepreneurs thinking about bringing the BirchBox model to Europe. The U.S. original has raised €1.4 million from several angels and institutional investors and seems to have a proven business model.
Today the Samwer brothers unveiled GlossyBox, which is not only by name but also by all other elements, an almost exact clone of the American original. BirchBox GlossyBox utilizes a subscription model (€10 per-month) for beauty samples. Imagine a nifty box, primarily targeted towards women, that you receive every month with the newest and hottest beauty samples, such as lipsticks, cremes or makeup. If you like what you get you can obviously also buy the full product straight from the accompanying online store.
Charles von Abercron, who until recently headed international online marketing for CityDeal, which was acquired by Groupon, will be acting as the CEO and also others from the CityDeal management join the GlossyBox team to kick off the startup.
There is no word on how much money they’ve raised for the new venture and if there are any co-investors asides from the Samwer brothers via their incubator Rocket Internet and/or their investment vehicle European Founders Fund. Although the model is exciting, it’s a purely sales driven business, which requires a large sales force (checked), lots of capital (checked) and a functioning network in the cosmetics industry needed to equip the company with those samples. The continuous quality of the samples will be crucial to GlossyBox’s initial success.