A digital-first D2C brand for women

Vineeta Singh and Kaushik Mukherjee founded SUGAR Cosmetics in 2015 as a digital-first D2C brand, which specifically caters to Indian women.

Monday March 29, 2021 , 4 min Read

Good morning!

No industry knows colours better than the cosmetics industry. The Indian cosmetics market was valued at more than $13 billion in FY20, and is expected to grow at double-digit CAGR to reach almost $29 billion over the next five years.

However, 95 percent of this market is offline.

Targeting this massive potential, life partners turned co-founders Vineeta Singh and Kaushik Mukherjee founded SUGAR Cosmetics in 2015 as a digital-first D2C brand, which specifically caters to Indian women.

But not everything was smooth at first. The Mumbai-based D2C brand did not even have enough money to even import its first batch of lipsticks that were manufactured in Germany.

It also took the company 58 months to go from seed to Series A funding.

“Most VCs are men; they don’t understand why a consumer might need a lipstick that lasts three hours longer,” says Vineeta.

Six years later, in February 2021, the cosmetics brand raised $21 million in a Series C round, has a presence in 10,000-plus retail outlets across 130-plus cities, and recorded about 6X growth in its revenues.

Last but not least, wishing you a very Happy Holi!

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