Beauty is looking good. But will the future be pretty?
Indian beauty startups are all the rage with investors right now. Will they manage to offer a measure of differentiation and thrive or go the way travel companies did some years ago and get swallowed up?
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Editor's note: It’s the kind of money that makes at least a few heads turn. In just the last one month, two beauty startups have made headlines with their latest funding rounds. And the amounts involved are nothing to be sneezed at. Let’s start with close to four-year-old online beauty and cosmetics company MyGlamm. A couple of weeks ago, e-commerce giant Amazon backed MyGlamm in a Rs 175 crore funding round, along with Ascent Capital and Wipro Consumer. This investment is a first by Amazon—the company has been looking for such a deal for a few months now—in the Indian beauty startup ecosystem. For MyGlamm, which has largely kept a low profile all these years, this fundraise means a valuation of more than $100 million (about Rs 730 crore) and chance to play in the big leagues. If that sounds impressive, the second announcement actually goes a step further. Purplle, an online beauty store, has raised $45 million (about Rs 326 crore) from Sequoia Capital India and existing investors Verlinvest, Blume Ventures, and JSW Ventures, the company said in a release. The …
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