News & Politics

Exclusive: Glamsquad Buys Susanna Quinn’s App Veluxe

The homegrown app offers beauty and fitness services on demand

Quinn. Photograph by Tony Powell.

The national beauty and lifestyle company Glamsquad has acquired local entrepreneur Susanna Quinn‘s app Veluxe, which offers carefully vetted on-demand beauty and fitness services to Washington’s elite.

Quinn founded Veluxe in 2014 after noticing that while other apps offered instant access to cars, places to stay, even dates, lifestyle and home services went wanting. Once downloading the app, users could request a personal trainer or yoga instructor to come right to their doorstep. Over the last four years, Quinn’s app amassed a faithful local following that Glamsquad, which provides similar services nationwide, hopes to incorporate.

“Susanna really understands how to build community and a personalized service that’s high touch,” Glamsquad CEO Amy Shecter tells Washingtonian. “Her network of VIP Washington insiders will now have the opportunity to experience Glamsquad’s high-touch standard of service.”

Quinn’s list of Washington VIP clients grew bigger by the day while it was independent. While Quinn declined to name the lawmakers she says use the app, some of her frequent fliers include Ivanka Trump, Estee Portnoy, Dana BashKatherine Bradley, Stephanie CutterJennifer Griffin, Ashley Taylor Bronczek, and Mary Margaret Valenti, among many others.

“These are all women who inspire me,” Quinn tells Washingtonian. “They give 110 percent all the time.”

Quinn is part of the world of DC power players herself. Her husband, power lawyer Jack Quinn,  served as a White House counsel under Bill Clinton and chief of staff to Al Gore.

Combining the two companies, the companies’ principles say, means more hands on deck to help professional women in a city where their looks are scrutinized at every turn, whether they’re tidying up for White House Correspondents’ dinner weekend or heading to a high-powered meeting before dashing off to catch a child’s soccer game.

Now, the app will reach a wider demographic in Washington. Shecter, former head of CorePower Yoga, plans to bring the newly integrated Glamsquad to area universities, DC-owned businesses, and local pop-up spaces as well as service existing clients by engaging with Quinn’s extensive network and marketing services on a larger platform. Integration of the two apps will begin over the next coming weeks and will likely wrap in the coming months.

Quinn will remain on board as a senior advisor to Glamsquad, representing the company in an ambassador-esque role by hosting and attending events and growing their Rolodex.  She says she has a few new projects in the pipeline, but says we’ll have to stay tuned for more specifics.

“Building a business up from nothing is one of my proudest accomplishments,” Quinn says. “Now that I’ve done it once, I feel confident in doing it all again.”

 

Staff Writer

Brittany Shepherd covers the societal and cultural scene in political Washington. Before joining Washingtonian as a staff writer in 2018, Brittany was a White House Correspondent for Independent Journal Review. While she has lived in DC for a number of years now, she still yearns for the fresh Long Island bagels of home. Find her on Twitter, often prattling on about Frasier.