India beauty e-commerce player Purplle achieves unicorn status
India-focused beauty e-commerce platform Purplle has raised USD 33m in funding at a valuation of USD 1.1bn – nearly twice what it was worth about seven months ago.
Korea-based cross-border venture capital firm Parmark Ventures came in as a new investor, while there were re-ups from the likes of Premji Invest, Blume Ventures, and Kedaara Capital.
Kedaara led a USD 75m round for Purplle in November 2021 at a valuation of USD 630m, up from USD 300m when Sequoia Capital India took the lead in a USD 45m investment. In January, Sequoia affiliate Faces Investment Holdings reportedly put in USD 34m at a valuation of over USD 700m.
Blume has been backing the company since its seed round in 2013. Other investors include IvyCap Ventures, JSW Ventures, Goldman Sachs, and Verlinvest.
Rival beauty e-commerce player Good Glamm Group – operator of MyGlamm – achieved unicorn status last November on closing a USD 150m round. Around the same time, Nykaa, another peer, completed an INR 53.5bn (USD 719m) domestic IPO. It now has a market capitalisation of USD 8.7bn. Purplle, Good Glamm, and Nykaa are all buying up smaller brands.
It underlines investor appetite for India’s beauty and personal care space as more direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands come to the fore. In recent months, L Catterton has thrown its support behind Sugar Cosmetics, leading a USD 50m Series D, while Plum and mCaffeine raised USD 35m and USD 31.7m, respectively.
Founded in 2012, Purplle gained initial traction as an e-commerce marketplace, brokering transactions between brands and consumers. However, there was always a goal to leverage the data accumulated and build out D2C private-label brands that resonate with locals. Its portfolio now features Good Vibes, Faces Canada, NY Bae, and Carmesi.
The company offers more than 60,000 products from over 1,000 brands, including five private-label brands. It claims 7m monthly active users and annualised gross merchandise value (GMV) of USD 180m for the 2022 financial year.
Manish Taneja, Purplle’s co-founder and CEO, said the new funding would go towards investments in technology, scaling the private brands business, and other innovations.
Chunsoo Kim, founder and managing partner of Paramark, added: “Purplle is addressing the enormous vacuum in the beauty and personal care industry in India in a way that the rising demand from massive Indian consumers can be best served beyond the limited set of customers in a few major cities.”
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