Why is Everyone Talking About Nykaa?
The Indian market has been abuzz with the news of Nykaa’s recent funding, so much that the various business forums haven’t stopped talking about them since.
So, What's The Hype About?
The company just finished with their Series D Funding and raised $24 million making their total funds raised to date a whopping $63.3 million!
Let’s break it down to understand why is it this huge a deal.
The Series D has closed at an amount of ₹165 crores. This, when compared to the ₹75 crores raised from the previous round of funding, shows that the company is doing something right to keep the investors hooked.
The main investors of Nykaa are Sunil Kant Munjal Chairman of Hero Corporate Service P Ltd, Family Offices of Consumer Gods Maker Marico’s Harsh Mariwala and Private equity investor Dalip Pathak. They are also backed by Max Ventures and TVS Capital Funds.
All of them had reinvested in the company which is the meatiest news of all because at Series D usually, the primary investors are looking for an exit because either the company isn’t reaping any profits or the company is capable enough to stand on its own two feet.
The presence of the main investors still investing in Nykaa means that the company is not only doing good in terms of business but also has a promising workforce and strong customer base.
Also. according to the reports released by Nykaa., the revenue generated by the company in the FY 2017–18 was ₹570 crores versus ₹214 crores of revenue in FY 2016–17. With the backing of these reports, the company expects to be profitable in FY 2018–19.
Nykaa is an online multi-brand beauty retailer that opened its first physical store at T3 IGI airport, Delhi in Nov 2015. It has two offline store formats, Nykaa Luxe that sells Indian and International beauty products and Nykaa On Trend that sells products curated based on their popularity. In 2015, Nykaa started their own collection of beauty products starting with nail enamels and growing into a wide range of options.
Falguni Nayar Inspiring Female Entrepreneurs
Beauty gets a new name, nykaa.com goes live tomorrow; Falguni Nayar on Twitter Oct 29, 2012
While attending Yes Bank’s Annual Startup Conclave, the president of the Indian Angel Network ((IAN) while discussing female entrepreneurship said, “The percentage of the women entrepreneurs who have completed the life-cycle of entrepreneurship (in India) is a small fraction.”
According to the Sixth Economic Census by the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO), only 14% of businesses in India are run by women domiciled in the country. There are a total of 58.5 Mn businesses in India, but only 8.05 Mn are managed by women entrepreneurs.
The founder of Nykaa, Falguni Nayar, is an alumnus of IIM Ahmedabad and worked as an investment banker and broker with Kotak Mahindra Group for 19 years. She was featured by Business Today under The Most Powerful Women in Business and also won the Woman Ahead award by Economic Times Startup.
According to Inc42, Nykaa, launched in July 2012, is an online marketplace for beauty and wellness products and has been continuously expanding its offline presence in the country and offers over 850 brands and 100,000 products. In an earlier conversation, Nayar revealed that “the gross merchandising volume for the year ending March 2017 touched $43.3 Mn (INR 280 Cr), with an average of 10,000 orders per day across all the platforms (online and offline).”
The Indian beauty market is expected to touch $13 billion by 2020, 20 percent of which will be from the online medium. Nykaa competes with Mumbai-based Purplle as well as marketplaces like Amazon, Flipkart, and Myntra who are all building on the beauty category.
In an earlier conversation with YourStory, Nayar had said that the company was gunning for IPO in 2018.
