Purplle, a Mumbai-based startup, an online cosmetics and beauty platform, recently secured a $45 million funding from its existing backers, Sequoia Capital India, Blume Ventures, Verlinvest, and JSW Ventures. For this Mumbai-based startup, it appears to be a Series D round. In December 2019, Purplle scored $30 million Series C led by Goldman Sachs, a global investment banking major.
In a recent press statement, the Mumbai-based startup said that Ivy Capital, its existing investor exited the company with a 22X return. Earlier, IvyCap invested Rs 15 crore in the company via its Fund I in 2015 and continued to do so in Fund II, pocketing, and invested a total of Rs 330 crore in the follow-on rounds. IvyCap, in a statement, said that they believed in Purplle’s growth and hence retained their stake for round 2.
As per claims by Purplle, its website has nearly 50,000 products and over 1,000 brands with more than seven million monthly active users on their marketplace. Nykaa is a direct competitor of Purplle along with horizontal majors such as Flipkart and Amazon. This development has come at a time when D2C brands and beauty e-commerce marketplaces selling on these platforms have raised funds and are in talks for a larger round in the coming months. The list includes Sugar Cosmetics, MyGlamm, and Juicy Chemistry.
As per some reports, Nykaa was in talks to raise around $50-150 million, which would have valued the Falguni Nayar-led firm at about $2 billion. Purplle was close to hitting profitability during the fiscal year of 2018-19, but the revenue dropped to Rs 86.8 crore during FY20, and its annual losses increased by 512.3% to Rs 24.92 crore from Rs 4.07 crore in FY19.
The company was a participant in Chennai-based beauty brand Juicy Chemistry’s $6.3 million financings round. Manish Taneja, Co-founder at Purplle said that lately, the company saw an increase in costs during FY 20 because it had invested in technology and human resources. He also said that the company would continue to invest in technology and people to capture the size of the opportunity. The plan at Purplle is to acquire small brands in the beauty marketplace with its fresh funds.
Purplle is an online space for Beauty and wellness needs. With its headquarters in Mumbai, it aims to give all shopaholics a platform to do the job more frugally. They showcase products from some of the globally leading brands.
