Ronan Perceval

Founder & CEO Phorest Salon Software

Last Reviewed: September 28, 2026

Executive Summary

Ronan Perceval is the founder and chief executive of Phorest, the Dublin company whose software runs appointment booking, payments, marketing, staff performance and client loyalty for hair and beauty salons, spas and aesthetic clinics. The business grew out of a problem he saw first-hand while working as a receptionist in a Dublin salon: clients who did not turn up. A simple text-message reminder that he and a friend wrote to fix it became the first Phorest product, and he has led the company since, through angel and Enterprise Ireland funding, a €20 million investment from Susquehanna Growth Equity in 2018, and expansion into the UK, the US, Germany and Australia.

Career Highlights

• Founded Phorest in Dublin with co-founder Jamie Mysercough; its first product, an SMS appointment reminder, cut the salon’s no-shows by 70% within a month, according to the company.
• Raised €20 million from Susquehanna Growth Equity in June 2018 to accelerate international expansion, a round that also bought out earlier investors.
• Accepted the European Business Angels Network award in June 2019 naming Phorest the most successful business financed by early-stage investors.
• Leads a company with offices in Dublin, Cologne, Philadelphia, Helsinki and Brisbane.
• Still in post as CEO in September 2026, personally delivering Phorest’s 2026 Client Experience Awards to customers in Dublin.

Professional Journey

Perceval’s route into software ran through a salon reception desk. By the company’s own account, he had worked in customer service jobs before taking a receptionist position at a busy Dublin salon, and found the atmosphere unlike anything he had worked in before. He also noticed what was costing the owner money. The salon lost at least one or two appointments a week to no-shows, and after the Christmas rush it struggled to get clients back in.

He enlisted a friend, Jamie Mysercough, who became Phorest’s co-founder, to write software that sent clients a text-message reminder of their appointment over what was then a dial-up connection. Phorest says no-shows fell by 70% within a month. The two then used the same system to send a January offer, a free retail product with every booking, and filled the diary into February. Other salons began phoning the reception desk to ask how they could get it, and Phorest was the result.

The company grew from messaging into full salon management software. Early funding came from Enterprise Ireland and business angels: Silicon Republic reported that Phorest raised €700,000 from 12 Halo Business Angel Network investors in rounds in 2011 and 2013, alongside equity from Enterprise Ireland. In June 2018 Perceval announced a €20 million investment from Susquehanna Growth Equity, which also bought out some existing investors. “As a team, we want to ignore the noise, and build an SMB Software-as-a-Service company that can last for generations,” he said at the time. The Irish Times reported that Phorest was then growing at around 40% a year and had more than 4,000 clients across Ireland, the UK, Finland, Germany and the US, with an office in Philadelphia for its American business.

A year later the European Business Angels Network named Phorest the most successful business financed by early-stage investors; Silicon Republic reported that eight of the original HBAN angels had been bought out in the Susquehanna round at an average of ten times their investment, and that the platform was used by more than 5,600 businesses in six countries. Perceval credited that early money with allowing the company “to develop the technology that is now the fabric of our business today”.

He continues to lead Phorest as founder and CEO. In September 2026 he joined the company’s team on the streets of Dublin to deliver its 2026 Client Experience Awards to customers in person.

Education

No education record was found in any source read for this profile.