TPG May Invest $30 Mn In Beauty Marketplace Nykaa

Online beauty and wellness marketplace Nykaa may soon raise $30 Mn (INR 213.5 Cr) in fresh funding from private equity firm TPG Capital.

A media report citing people aware of the development said that the fresh funding may value Nykaa at about $631 Mn (INR 4,500 Cr), up from $421 Mn-$491.65 Mn (INR 3,000-3,500 Cr) in its last round. The investment in Nykaa follows TPG’s investments in the consumer sector with startups such as home design startup Livspace already in its portfolio.

An email query sent to Nykaa and TPG Capital didn’t elicit any response till the time of publication.

Nykaa began its operations in 2012 and has now grown to be EBITDA-positive for the last two quarters. It also claims to be on track to grow 100% in revenue in FY19, potentially taking it beyond the $140 Mn (INR 1,000 Cr) revenue mark.

Nykaa 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 100K products.

It last raised $15.72 Mn (INR 113 Cr) from consumer-focused private equity manager’s Lighthouse India Fund III with which its long-time investor TVS Shriram Growth Fund exited the company. The company has raised over $77.5 Mn in funding till date.

The company aims to fuel its plans towards expanding its offline presence from 17 stores currently to about 55 stores by FY19-end.

Here’s a quick update about everything happening at Nykaa:

• Nykaa has added a new section for men called Nykaa Man and expects it to contribute about 2% to the company’s overall revenue
• The company has also introduced Nykaa Design Studio, a curation of premium Indian fashion designers
• In September 2018, the company launched Nykaa Luxe store as the exclusive beauty retailer
• In March 2018, it also launched Nykaa Network – a community for encouraging consumers to engage and create beauty conversations
• The gross merchandising volume for the year ending March 2017 touched $43.3 Mn (INR 280 Cr), with an average of 10K orders per day across all the platforms (online and offline)
• In FY18, Nykaa recorded over $86.09 Mn (INR 570 Cr) in net revenue in FY18 from $32.32 Mn (INR 214 Cr) a year earlier

Beauty ecommerce websites like NewU, Purplle, etc, with their exclusive focus on beauty and wellness products, are leading in the space.

While Mumbai-based online beauty products marketplace Purplle raised $2.57 Mn(INR 17.5 Cr) from a clutch of investors in a fresh funding round in June 2018, grocery delivery startup BigBasket recently announced its official foray in online beauty market last month.

The market is expected to cross $3.5 Bn by 2022 as the leading companies continue to attract major customer attention and celebrity touch to increase their offline appeal.

 [The development was reported by ET.]

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