Alarmclock:euro is reporting that Wahanda has raised seed funding from Ambient Sound Investments, an Estonian venture capital firm set up by four of Skype’s founding engineers, the investors behind last.fm and a former top executive of Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts.
Wahanda, a Native American word for “great spirit and creator”, is an online health and wellness community plus e-commerce marketplace where local spa and wellness businesses, pros and consumers come together. The London-based company was founded by Salim Mitha, former Senior European Director – Search & Social Search at Yahoo! and Lopo Champalimaud, ex-Managing Director European Lifestyle at lastminute.com. According to the company blog, the website opened up to the public today.
I’m not really a spa person, but from the looks of it, the site seems to cater well to its audience with the standard bag of tricks: Wahanda has an exhaustive network of spas, salons, fitness centres and therapists and a slew of community features like user-generated reviews, ratings, Google Maps integration, social bookmarking buttons, etc. The site also sports a genuine calm look, clear navigation and enough ways for visitors to interact with the content.
