Thursday, April 18

Purplle.com raises USD 45 mn from Sequoia & others

Mumbai, 03/22/2021: Beauty products selling platform Purplle.com raises USD 45 million involving a clutch of investors, led by Sequoia Capital India joining as a new investor.

Sequoia, along with existing investors Verlinvest, Blume Ventures and JSW Ventures, put fresh capital into the company. Ivy Capital, an existing investor, has partially exited its investment making returns of 22 times, a statement said.

Collectively, the total money invested across the fresh investment by backers and the partial exit by Ivy comes at USD 45 million. The company did not detail the split between the two.

The statement said the investment will bolster the brand”s ambition to deliver 8-10X growth in the next 4-5 years.

Its co-founder and chief executive Manish Taneja said it has delivered 90 per cent growth in gross merchandise value for each of the last three years on a compounded basis despite the COVID year.

He said ”Good Vibes” is already a $20 million brand and added that the new investment will help shape the company into a “multibillion-dollar, digital-first, beauty and personal care enterprise”.

Sequoia’s principal Sakshi Chopra said there is a growing trend towards the gentrification of e-commerce where consumers are making a clear distinction between distribution platforms and brands that are more relevant to them.

The company has 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, Chopra said.

“We see Purplle emerging as a dominant beauty destination as the online beauty penetration grows from 10 percent to over 25 percent over the next decade,” she added.

Vikram Gupta, founder and managing partners at IvyCap Ventures, said it had invested in the company in 2015.