Purplle.com Raises $45 Mn From Verlinvest, Sequoia Capital India, Blume Ventures And JSW Ventures The investment will further bolster the brand's ambition to deliver 8-10-time growth in the next 4-5 years

Mumbai-based online beauty brand Purplle.com announced to have raised $45 million in a funding round from Verlinvest, Sequoia Capital India, Blume Ventures, and JSW Ventures. While the three existing investors reinforced their commitment, the beauty e-tailer welcomed Sequoia Capital India.

The investment will further bolster the brand's ambition to deliver 8-10-time growth in the next 4-5 years.

"We are excited to partner with Sequoia Capital India, as they foray into the online beauty industry. Reinvestment from Verlinvest, JSW Ventures, and Blume Ventures is a testament to the conviction of our investors. Purplle has been on a robust growth trajectory. Even with a COVID year, we have delivered >90 per cent GMV CAGR for the last 3 years. This, while scaling our private brands successfully; Good Vibes is already an INR 150 crore brand. The investment will help to shape Purplle into a multibillion-dollar, digital-first, beauty and personal care enterprise," said Manish Taneja, co-founder, and chief executive officer, Purplle.com.

Sequoia Capital India has successfully pre-empted market needs with early investments in innovative start-ups and has partnered with Indian unicorns like BYJU'S, OYO, Ola, Zomato, and Freshworks, the statement said.

"We are seeing a growing trend towards the gentrification of e-commerce in India. Consumers are making a clear distinction between distribution platforms and brands that are more relevant to them. We are excited to partner with Purplle as we believe they have cracked the beauty playbook of value retailing with 3 key tenets – a business built on high retention and low customer acquisition cost (CAC), a wide assortment of brands offering quality at best prices, and an attractive private label portfolio mix. We see Purplle emerging as a dominant beauty destination as the online beauty penetration grows from more than 10- 25 per cent over the next decade," remarked Sakshi Chopra, principal, Sequoia Capital India.

The D2C e-beauty brand brought an upsurge with the brand's commitment to making beauty reach the comfort of every home, this year. Purplle signed Sara Ali Khan as the first brand ambassador, rolling out the #GoPurplle campaign. The brand is witnessing a surge in overall volumes, transaction value, and an increase in users' vis-à-vis last year, the company shared.

"Despite COVID, Purplle delivered remarkable growth. We believed in their mission of democratizing beauty across the heartlands of India, with affordable and accessible products. Our investment this year will further enable Purplle to strengthen its position as a market leader in the beauty e-commerce segment," commented Arjun Anand, executive director, Verlinvest, while speaking on the investment, a year after funding Purplle's extended Series C Round.

Founded in 2012, the e-beauty destination has secured 7 million monthly active users. The beauty e-tailer has over 1000 brands with nearly 50,000 products, available on its website and app. The company raised Series C funding at the end of 2019 from Goldman Sachs and Verlinvest, it further said.

"We have invested in Purplle.com from our Fund 1 and Fund 2. When we first invested in Purplle in 2015, we were confident that digital would disrupt and redefine the beauty industry in India. With an initial investment of INR 15 crore from our Fund 1 growing by manifolds to INR 330 crore, our partnership has been rewarding. We continue to believe in the growth of the company and therefore we have retained our stake for Fund 2. Our belief in the brand and the vision of its founders "Beauty for All' enabled us to generate 1.35-time of our entire Fund 1 from Purplle," added Vikram Gupta, founder and managing partner, IvyCap Ventures.

Purplle has said to have effectively scaled its digital-first beauty brands like Purplle, Good Vibes, NY Bae, amongst others. Good Vibes from this cohort has already become an INR 150 crore brand and growing at more than 90 per cent year-on-year.