This woman entrepreneur ditched investment banking to start a D2C skincare startup
Launched in 2021, Mumbai-based D2C skincare startup Foxtale aims to make affordable, efficacious skincare accessible to all women.
Romita Mazumdar worked as a banker, but skincare greatly interested her. The appeal led her to research the market and find a gap between efficacy and affordability.
In 2021, she decided to bridge this gap with the launch of Mumbai-based D2C skincare brand .
“I worked closely with a makeup brand during my initial days as an investment banker in India. I discovered that the personal care sector attracted me and I understood it much better than any other category. So, I did my research and tried to understand the dynamics of the Indian skincare market,” Founder and CEO Romita tells HerStory.
“The more I deep-dived, the further I identified it as my calling and decided to establish a brand that understands and meets the needs of Indian skin,” she says.
Romita says she founded Foxtale “in reaction to my own skincare product purchasing experience”.
“The Indian skincare market is massive and our fundamental goal was to comprehend Indian demand and create products that resonate with it. As my primary interest was in understanding how businesses work and succeed, I naturally transitioned from an investment banker to an entrepreneur with Foxtale,” she says.
The skincare brand was launched in December 2021 with four basic products that are commonly used: a cleanser, a vitamin C serum, a moisturiser, and a sunscreen.
After “perfecting this four-step routine”, the startup is now ready to launch more targeted solutions for specific skincare issues.
“We will make self-care accessible to all and affordable pricing is one of the many ways to achieve it. At the same time, we ensured that we do not compromise on quality for profitability. We thrive on our manufacturing tech and R&D team,” she says.
The startup sources all ingredients from labs around the world to create quality products that are priced competitively. “Our manufacturing infrastructure, coupled with smart and effective formulations, helps us do so.”
The Foxtale product range is available all over India through its website. Products are also available on Amazon, Flipkart, and Meesho, and the startup sees higher demand for its products in metros vis a vis Tier II cities.
The journey
Romita did her bachelor’s in economics from UCLA and worked as an investment banker at Bank of America. Her career started in tech investment banking and she used to look at young companies like Airbnb, Pinterest, Fashion Nova, etc.
In 2019, she moved to India because Bank of America was expanding its tech banking vertical in India.
“That's when I worked closely with a makeup and personal care category brand. I grew organically from a banker to an entrepreneur focused on a skincare brand that suited the sensibilities of Indian skin,” she says.
Foxtale, which began with four team members, is currently a 25-member team and plans to expand to 40 people by the end of the year.
Romita feels foreign standards of beauty have had a significant impact on us for generations, making it difficult to select products that are best suited for Indian skin types.
“We needed to figure out the best combination of ingredients to suit our country's 200+ skin types. We believe in three principles, simplicity, efficacy and safety, and our products are made with our customers in mind,” she says.
The founder feels their products help deal with a variety of skin concerns faced by Indian women and women of colour, in general.
“Foxtale stands for effectiveness. We also wanted our packaging and branding to appear as natural as possible and connect in a fun, engaging, and functional way,” Romita adds.
The D2C startup has its own R&D lab and all product formulation is done in-house. The brand claims to be the first in India to start and ace the concept of lab-approved tester sampling. All products have gone through FDA and clinical trials, and are paraben, sulphate, and cruelty free, and dermat tested.
“We began by conversing with our target audience and refined our product range with crowdsourced feedback. Our USP is listening to our consumers and delivering products that they actually need. With our lab trials we have reached, more than 250 women trying our products and over 1,000 people signing up to be a part of the movement in the future,” Romita states.
The way ahead
According to a RedSeer report, the beauty and personal care industry was valued at $16 billion in 2020 and is expected to grow at 12 percent per annum to $28 billion by 2025.
“There is competition, and it is difficult with so many brands. But not every brand is our competitor. Foxtale lays emphasis on product experiences and sampling via diverse touchpoints. The experience and efficacy of our products sets us apart; our users realise this after a couple of trials,” Romita says.
India’s D2C market is abuzz and Foxtale competes with , , , , , , and (The Good Glamm Group).
The startup raised seed capital of Rs 5.5 crore ahead of its market launch from investors such as Founder Kunal Shah, Kae Capital, and Rohit MA, Co-founder of Cloudnine Group of Hospitals. It recently also secured $4 million in a pre-Series A investment round led by Matrix Partners India, with existing investor Kae Capital and several prominent angel investors participating.
“We raised our seed round in August 2021 and launched products in December 2021. There was an early product-market fit, with a repeat rate of more than 50 percent, and this led to quick pre-Series A investment. This round of funding will be used to expand the product line, recruit top vertical leaders, and scale the company across many touchpoints,” Romita says.
Foxtale, which refused to divulge sales details, is expecting to reach one million Indian women in its first year of operation.
Edited by Teja Lele