[Funding alert] Clean beauty marketplace Vanity Wagon raises Rs 5.5 Cr led by Inflection Point Ventures

Clean beauty marketplace Vanity Wagon on Friday announced that it has raised Rs 5.5 crore in a pre-Series A round led by Inflection Point Ventures. The round also witnessed participation from Venture Catalysts, Lotus Herbals, the existing investors – Agility Ventures (led by Dhianu Das) and a consortium of HNI’s (advised by Instarto).

The funds raised will be used for further strengthening the tech platform, marketing, brand building, team expansion, and private label acquisitions. Vanity Wagon also plans to expand in the international market, the company stated.

"India's cosmetics market is likely to reach $28.9 billion by 2026. With this, the clean beauty market will also see double the growth. Growing disposable income will lead to the increasing purchasing power of women who are more conscious now and would prefer only non-toxic products which would not harm their skin. As Vanity Wagon is the market leader in organic products, we foresee its growth as a robust marketplace of natural beauty products," said Dhianu Das, Founder, Agility Ventures.

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Founded in Sept 2018 by Prateek Ruhail, NainaRuhail and Sahil Shrestha, Vanity Wagon portal operates in a niche subset of beauty – Clean Beauty. The startup started with 10 brands and today, it has 151 brands in its portfolio, exhibiting exponential growth.

Prateek Ruhail, Co-founder and CEO, Vanity Wagon said,

“The beauty segment has been taken by a storm of clean beauty. This is driven by consumers’ demand to consume non-toxic beauty and personal care products. As brands in this segment continue to show robust growth, we see Vanity Wagon becoming a dominant marketplace in the clean beauty market in the next two to three years.”

Vanity Wagon now caters to a global market (Singapore being their first entry point) with the total addressable market globally expected to be $11 billion by 2027.

Mitesh Shah, Co-founder, Inflection Point Ventures said, “Modern age definition of beauty has moved far beyond fair skin. New-age brands are constantly challenging this norm and we have seen that many made-in-India beauty brands have proven that new-age women are looking for high efficacy products which are cruelty-free. Vanity Wagon’s growth has been exponential and the boom in D2C and online commerce in the beauty sector is going to empower the next level of growth for the company.”

Commenting on the investment, Dr Apoorva Ranjan Sharma, President, and Co-founder, Venture Catalysts, said, “Vanity Wagon is on the right growth trajectory on making its mark in the clean beauty industry with a solid team, a data-driven growth approach, and swift adaptability to the needs of the constantly evolving beauty consumers. We look forward to supporting them in capturing a sizeable quantum in the future of clean-organic personal care market.”