Falguni Nayar said ahead of Nykaa’s NASDAQ debut “With no prior expertise, I founded Nykaa at the age of 50. “I hope the Nykaa adventure inspires each of you to be the Nykaa of your lives,”
Falguni Nayar, the company’s CEO and founder of Nykaa cosmetics e-commerce business, just became the wealthiest self-made woman billionaire after her company’s shares had a strong response when launched on the Dalal Street stock exchange.
According to an AFP article, Nayar is now among the world’s wealthiest people, thanks to Nykaa’s recent initial public offering, listed the same day as the country’s IPO boom. Falguni Nayar is now one of just six Indian women billionaires listed in the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
According to a Bloomberg storey, the 58-year-old, who controls nearly half of Nykaa’s shares, is now worth $6.5 billion as her firm’s shares rose to 89 per cent as trading began on the day.
Nykaa’s parent business, FSN E-Commerce, made its stock market debut on November 10, becoming the first woman-led unicorn in India. On that day, Nykaa shares made an incredible debut on Dalal Street.
With no prior expertise, I founded Nykaa at the age of 50. “I hope the Nykaa adventure inspires each of you to be the Nykaa of your lives,” Nayar said ahead of Nykaa’s NASDAQ debut.
The Journey
Falguni Nayar has had an impressive career, ranging from managing director of the Kotak Group to founding a company at 50. Before founding Nykaa in 2012, the entrepreneur had a 19-year career with Kotak Mahindra Group, where he retired as one of the top executives in the company’s investing banking division.
Nayar’s origins, which date back to her graduation from IIM Ahmedabad, are likely why she makes such an excellent investment – dispelling all the misconceptions about age being a determining factor in one’s life path.
In her three-and-a-half-decade career, Falguni Nayar has worn several hats. She began her work with AF Ferguson and Co. as a management consultant in 1985 after graduating from IIM Ahmedabad.
In Mumbai, she was born and raised in a Gujarati family. She subsequently spent 19 years working for the Kotak Mahindra Group in various capacities before opting for her business venture, putting her family’s money at risk. In New York and London, she established Kotak’s worldwide activities.
When she left Kotak in 2012, she was the Managing Director of its institutional equities and investment banking, divisions. To address women’s beauty needs, she started Nykaa the same year with no prior experience in retail, beauty or technology.
She was just a few months away from turning fifty then. Within nine years, she has become India’s richest self-made woman, with a net worth of $7 billion. After the company’s initial public offering, Falguni Nayar and her family still hold 56.56 per cent of the company.
Nykaa has comfortably entered into India’s top 100 most valuable firms, with a market capitalization of $14 billion. It is ranked 52nd, ahead of companies like Godrej Consumer, Bharat Petroleum, and IndiGo.
Nayar has established a capital-efficient and asset-light company strategy based on her experience as a banker. Nykaa had only raised $100 million in equity before its $720 million IPO. It’s also a profitable startup, which makes it an outlier in the startup world.
It made an $8 million profit on almost $330 million in revenue in FY21. Zomato, Policy bazaar, Mobikwik, Paytm, Oyo Rooms, and Pharm easy are all loss-making startups that have just gone public or are in the process of doing so.
