Nykaa’s Falguni Nayar among India’s 20th wealthiest people, as India’s most giant cosmetics e-tailer, raises 3.5 billion.
On its first day of trading, FSN E-Commerce Ventures Ltd, which runs the e-commerce site Nykaa, raised Rs 53.5 billion in its initial public offering, making the CEO Falguni Nayar join the ranks of self-made billionaire women.
The beauty startup she founded under Nykaa went public recently and promptly doubled on its trading debut day.
According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Ms Nayar runs FSN E-Commerce Ventures Ltd, which raised Rs 53.5 billion ($720 million) in its initial public offering and saw shares rise to 96% on its first day of trading.
Ms Nayar, who owns about half of the company, is now worth $7 billion, making her currently India’s wealthiest self-made female Billionaire.
Talking about her success after the trading debut Ms Nayar encouraged more women to seize control and stand up. “Women need to allow the spotlight of their lives to be on themselves; I hope more women like me dare to dream for themselves.” She said.
Nykaa’s journey to success
Falguni Nayak started the beauty startup at age 50, after her tenure of working in investment banking and guiding other entrepreneurs through the IPO process.
Since its inception, the startup has grown into the country’s leading beauty retailer, buoying online sales with demo videos, influencer collaborations, celebrity endorsement and more than 70 on ground stores in different parts of the country.
Nykaa, derived from the Sanskrit word for a heroine, sells creams, makeup essentials, jewellery, clothing, perfumes, and necessities that cater to different Indian skin tones and skin types.
The company turned unicorn last year in March 2020, after just five rounds of funding and only three involved institutional investors. The company became a profitable venture among the few profitable e-retailers in India.
On March 31st, their fiscal year reported a net profit of Rs 61.96 crore. Its revenue grew by 38% each year—the way to Rs 2,453 crore in the fiscal year of 2021. On Wednesday, Nykaa listed at nearly 80% premium and ended the day at 96.15%, which translates to a total market capitalization of Rs 1,04,360.85 crore on its first day.
Building Nykaa
Ms Nayak was a graduate of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad and spent most of her career as the managing director and head of its institutional equities business at Kotak Mahindra Capital.
She quit her job back in 2012 after seeing an open market for makeup and beauty goods among the young and the fashionable crowd in tier 2 and tier 3 cities and started the brand Nykaa at age 50.
With a focus on building an inventory-led business, the company was funded entirely by Falguni Nayar and her husband Sanjay Nayar, the chairman of private equity major KKR & Co. in India for the first two years.
It turned unicorn only in March 2020. Entrepreneurship, it seems, was in her blood, as she has quoted saying in an interview back in 2017. Born and raised in a Gujarati family, her father ran a small bearings company, and the most common household chatter at home revolved on investments, the stock market and trade.
Today she stands as the wealthiest self-made woman in India, among the country’s 20 richest people.
