[Funding alert] Beauty retailer Purplle joins unicorn club with $33M round

Online beauty and personal care products retailer Purplle is the latest entrant to the startup unicorn club at a valuation of $1.1 billion.

The company announced raising $33 million in Series E round of funding from South Korean investment firm Paramark Ventures, apart from returning investors Premji Invest, Blume Ventures, and private equity fund Kedaara.

This takes the total amount of equity capital raised by the company to $215 million. The Mumbai-headquartered startup had raised $140 million as part of its Series D round across two tranches, which saw participation from Kedaara and Premji Invest. 

The startup will be using the capital for business expansion and scaling its private brands. 

“We welcome our new investor, Paramark Ventures, and look forward to cross- country synergies. 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. Staying true to our purpose of making Purplle ‘Har Indian Ka Beauty Destination’, we are strongly positioned for the next phase of accelerated growth,” said Manish Taneja, Co-founder and CEO of Purplle.com, in a statement issued by the company. 

Purplle was founded in 2011 by IIT alumni Manish, Rahul Dash, and Suyash Katyayani and has since scaled to a monthly active user base of seven million with over 1,000 brands and five private direct-to-consumer labels. The company claims to have scaled its GMV (Gross Merchandise Value) to $180 million in FY 2022. GMV refers to the total value of goods sold by a retailer over a specific period of time. 

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“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,” said Chunsoo Kim, Founder and Managing Partner of Paramark Ventures. 

Among Purplle’s private labels, skincare brand Good Vibes is a Rs 150 crore brand. Other private brands include Faces Canada, which it acquired in December 2021, as well as NY Bae and feminine hygiene brand Carmesi. This is a part of Purplle’s house of brands strategy, which has seen competitors such as Good Glamm Group and Nykaa aggressively going after brand acquisition. 

Purplle will be the third Indian unicorn in the online beauty and personal care space, apart from Good Glamm Group, which turned unicorn in November 2021, and Nykaa, which made its public market debut last year.