Indian beauty e-commerce unicorn Nykaa received an undisclosed investment from Boston-based asset management company Fidelity Management & Research Company.

WHO: Nykaa founder and CEO Falguni Nayar, a former Managing Director at Kotak Investment Banking, founded Nykaa as an e-commerce platform for beauty and wellness products in 2012. The Mumbai-headquartered company launched offline operations in 2015 and currently has over 70 offline stores with plans to open 40 more in the future. Nykaa has a portfolio of over 300,000 products and partners with more than 1,500 brands.

IN THEIR OWN WORDS: “We are very excited to have Fidelity, one of the largest asset managers in the world, to join as a partner in our growth journey. Their investment in a private company in India is a testament to the strength of our brand and business model. Nykaa’s focus on business sustainability and corporate governance further supports such strong investor confidence,” said Nykaa founder and CEO Falguni Nayar in a statement.

“Nykaa is appropriately positioned to benefit from the recent tailwinds that have supported sales for predominantly online businesses,” Nykaa said in a statement. “The combination of accelerated consumer activity online, and overall brand performance for Nykaa has boosted its market share in the beauty business as well as jump-started growth for its fashion platform.”

DETAILS:

• Nykaa received an undisclosed investment from Boston-based asset management company Fidelity Management & Research Company.
• The investment was made through a secondary transaction, which gave Nykaa’s previous investors and employees a partial exit.
• Earlier this year, Nykaa had raised investments similarly through secondary transactions from actresses Alia Bhatt and Katrina Kaif.
• In March 2020, Nykaa had raised $13 million from Steadview Capital, one of its existing investors at a $1.2 billion valuation.
• In 2019, private equity giant TPG’s Growth fund invested $14.4 million.
• To date, the company has raised over $120 million in total funding.
• In September 2018, Lighthouse India Fund III bought the stake held by TVS Shriram Growth Fund in Nykaa by investing Rs 113 crore ($15.3 million). TVS Shriram was part of the Series B and Series C fund-raise by the Indian beauty.
• Nykaa claims it has been fulfilling 1.5 million orders every month.
• Nykaa reportedly generated revenue amounting to Rs. 1,860 crore in FY 2019-20 with EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) of Rs. 94 crore. In FY 2018-19, it recorded revenue of Rs. 1,159.32 crore with EBITDA of Rs. 2.3 crore.
• The company expects a 40% growth in its revenue in FY 2020-21 thanks to the rise in e-commerce sales despite the COVID-19-induced lockdown.
• Nykaa told ET that it expects its new fashion business to top Rs 500 crore in sales in the current fiscal year, a 5X growth over sales in the previous year.