Beauty startup Purplle raises $33 million funding, turns unicorn

This makes it the second Indian tech startup to join the unicorn club this week after online education venture Physics Wallah, amid a funding winter in the global startup ecosystem.

Existing investors Premji Invest, Blume Ventures, and Kedaara Capital also participated in the round. The company has raised $215 million to date, including this round. Its earlier investors include Goldman Sachs and Verlinvest.

The company, which competes with larger rival , has seven million monthly active users and over 1,000 brands on it platform, including five private labels.

ETtech

Purplle said its annualised gross merchandise value was $180 million in FY 2022. It has 2,400 employees. Last year, Purplle acquired cosmetics and skincare brand Faces Canada.

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The company is looking at many other tuck-in acquisitions and will use the capital to fund its inorganic growth plans,
ET reported on May 27.

Manish Taneja, cofounder and CEO, Purplle, said in a statement, “The infusion is an opportunity to further our mission of building the beauty industry in India with technological investments, scaling of our private brands, and industry-first innovations.”

The online beauty market, traditionally dominated by large multinational companies, has seen startups like The Good Glamm Group, Sugar Cosmetics and Mamaearth raise substantial funds in the last two years. Recently, Sugar Cosmetics raised $50 million led by L Catterton.

ET reported on May 4 that The Good Glamm
Group has been in talks to stitch a $250 million round at a valuation of $1.8-2 billion.

The increased funding in the beauty space comes on the back of Nykaa’s blockbuster IPO last year, when it debuted on the Indian bourses at a $7.1 billion market capitalisation.

The company was founded in 2012 by Manish Taneja and Rahul Dash.