Lovi had already built the growth engine. Braavo helped give it more room to run.

The AI skincare app had grown rapidly on the back of web2app acquisition, turning paid media into a predictable source of new subscribers while revenue grew as much as 2.1-fold year over year. By 2026, the question was no longer whether user acquisition worked. It was how aggressively Lovi could scale it without tying up operating cash or raising equity every time the company wanted to increase spend.

That made UA cohort financing a natural fit.

Within two months of closing a $15 million financing commitment with Braavo Capital, Lovi had tripled its monthly advertising spend without restricting operating cash flow or drawing on available equity. And as the relationship evolved, the structure proved flexible enough to accommodate an opportunity neither side had anticipated at closing.

Building a growth engine around personalization

Lovi is an AI-powered personalization platform for beauty and longevity. Its technology evaluates products against an individual user, builds personalized routines and uses ongoing data to help users understand what works for them. The company has expanded from its original skincare focus into a broader personalization and discovery platform spanning additional beauty and wellness categories.

Lóvi was founded on a shared belief of its co-founders, Alexey Shagraev and Nadia Kapleva, that beauty recommendations should be grounded in scientific evidence rather than marketing claims. Alexey brings years of experience building large-scale technology systems at Google and Yandex, while Nadia contributes more than 15 years of expertise in cosmetics and aesthetic medicine. Together, they developed what they describe as a “vertical AI” system: models purpose-built for skincare and beauty that combine skin scans, product ingredients, real-world user outcomes, and clinical expertise to deliver personalized, evidence-based recommendations.

The business began to accelerate when Lovi leaned into web2app acquisition in 2024. Instead of optimizing purely for app installs, the team built web funnels around paying subscribers and used personalization throughout the acquisition and onboarding journey. Revenue moved from hundreds of thousands in ARR to millions, with year-over-year growth reaching as much as 2.1-fold.

For Lovi, marketing became more than a distribution channel. It also served as a feedback loop for understanding customer needs, improving the product, and collecting data at scale. Each campaign brought in users whose skin scans, routines, and purchases helped refine the platform’s personalization engine. As Shagraev puts it, marketing became “a very powerful instrument to figure out what people actually need.”

When working capital becomes the constraint

After years of investing in profitable UA, Lovi had the cohort history and predictable payback curves to scale further. The constraint was increasingly financial rather than operational.

Traditional equity would have provided capital, but at the cost of dilution and a fundraising process disconnected from the economics of the campaigns themselves. Lovi wanted a structure that could grow alongside acquisition performance.

UA cohort financing matched the capital to the activity being funded. Braavo committed capital for monthly acquisition spend, with each advance repaid from the revenue generated by that cohort rather than from the company’s overall revenue or balance sheet.

For Lovi, that meant the company could increase acquisition spend without continually choosing between growth and preserving cash for product, hiring and other operating priorities.

Why Lovi chose Braavo

Lovi evaluated multiple financing options before selecting Braavo. Three things mattered most: the ability to structure around Lovi’s specific cohort economics, the technical and analytical infrastructure behind the underwriting, and a collateral structure aligned with how the company wanted to finance growth.

“I was really impressed with Braavo’s analytical capabilities, the depth of their understanding of the subscription business, and how quickly they developed financing terms tailored to our specific needs,” said Alexey Shagraev, CEO of Lovi. “Their integration layer and experience meant they could move quickly as soon as they received our data. It was smooth sailing, and that gave me confidence that we were working with a partner who really understood our business.”

That analytical depth mattered because Lovi was not looking for a generic subscription-financing template. Its acquisition strategy, payback curves and web2app model required a structure built around the company’s actual performance.

“Braavo’s approach to collateral was another important factor for us,” said Mike Ionov, COO of Lovi. “The structure was clear, transparent and aligned with how we wanted to finance our user acquisition, which stood out as we evaluated our options.”

From financing agreement to operating leverage

The impact showed up quickly.

Within two months of closing the facility, Lovi had tripled its monthly advertising spend, while keeping operating cash and available equity free for other priorities.

That flexibility became even more important as the business scaled.

Within four months of closing, Braavo worked with Lovi on a bespoke amendment that unlocked additional capital beyond the original structure, giving the team more firepower heading into Q5.

The amendment mattered for more than the incremental dollars. It demonstrated one of the reasons Lovi had selected Braavo in the first place: the ability to understand the company’s economics and adapt the financing structure as the business evolved rather than forcing the company back into a predetermined template.

What comes next

With more acquisition capacity and greater flexibility around working capital, Lovi is continuing to broaden the business beyond its original skincare offering.

The company is expanding its personalization platform across additional beauty and wellness categories while diversifying revenue across subscriptions, e-commerce and other higher-LTV models.

For Lovi, the value of the financing is ultimately less about the size of the facility than what it allows the company to do: put more capital behind an acquisition engine that already works, while preserving cash and equity for everything else.

Could UA cohort financing fit your growth engine?

Braavo provides committed UA financing for established consumer app and game companies with predictable, profitable cohort economics at scale. If you’re interested in learning more, get in touch with Braavo Capital.