Exclusive: Nykaa To Raise Additional Funding From Lexdale International

Mumbai-based beauty marketplace Nykaa is securing additional funding from a new investor,  Lexdale International after investment from Steadview Capital over the last two months.

According to the ministry of corporate filings of Nykaa parent company, accessed by Inc42, the company in a meeting on April 21 decided to create, offer, issue and allot fresh equity shares to Steadview Capital and Lexdale International. While the money from Steadview has already come in and reported, the company is yet to receive INR 26.6 Cr from Lexdale.

Lexdale has been issued 43,918 equity shares at a face value of INR 10 with a premium of INR 6,049.56 per share worth INR 26.61 Cr. The funding will help the company for:

• Upgradation and development of technology
• General Corporate purposes
• Marketing and advertising

With this investment, Lexdale will hold 1.27% stake in the company while Steadview will hold 3.65% stake. Prior to this, the company raised INR 100 Cr from Steadview Capital in Series F funding. The total funding raised by Nykaa till date $145.9 Mn from investors like TPG Growth, Lighthouse etc.

Founded by Falguni Nayar in 2012, Nykaa is an online marketplace for beauty and wellness products. Since 2015, Nykaa has also grown its physical store presence in the country with a current footprint of around 55 stores, housing luxury brands such as Tom Ford, Jo Malone London, Dior and Givenchy.

Nykaa currently offers over 1K brands and 100K products online. The company has 55 stores across 20 cities for Luxe, On Trend and Kiosks.

Claiming a 75% retention rate and with over 1,000 brand collaborations, Nykaa follows an inventory model. Products are bought from brands and distributors and then sold directly to the customers. Earlier, talking to Inc42, Nykaa CEO (retail) Anchit Nayar said that the company has 16 Mn visitors on its website, with 55 Mn pageviews a month.

Nykaa has managed to buck the trend of ecommerce losses and become profitable in the financial year ending March 31, 2019. In FY19, the company’s revenues grew 1.08X with 99% increase in expenses, thus leading to profits of INR 2.31 Cr.

As of now, most of the offline stores of Nykaa are shut due to the ongoing lockdown and may continue to see hassle with impending lockdown 4.0. However, Nykaa must be eying a comeback as the government has now allowed the delivery of non-essentials in orange and green zones.

Hence, the company’s comeback in the beauty market while trying to lure customers by offering essentials during pandemic will remain to be seen.