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The six-year-old startup has built a nearly Rs 1,000 crore personal care business on the back of a buzzy brand, marketing and a push into offline retail. How far can it go?

Editor's note: A little over two years ago, when we first wrote about Mamaearth, the baby care startup had built a Rs 100 crore brand and was expanding into dozens of product lines across personal care. The company had said it was targeting Rs 500 crore in turnover in three years, and the sentiment at the time among industry analysts was that the (then) mostly online brand would find it tough. The concern, they pointed out, was that the rapid addition of products could lead to a diffusion of the value of the brand and the management’s bandwidth. In the 2021-22 fiscal year, Mamaearth (Honasa Consumer Pvt. Ltd) generated Rs 943 crore in revenue from operations, double the Rs 460 crore it had recorded the previous year. The company also turned a marginal profit in 2020-21 (excluding a one-time expense from a fall in the value of certain preference shares), as well as in the latest fiscal year. From six products when Varun Alagh and Ghazal Alagh started it in 2016 to more than 300 now, across online and offline channels, the …

Bistro may look like a response to Swiggy and Rapido’s 10-minute food delivery apps, but the similarities end at affordability—the playbooks are fundamentally different.
The food-tech pioneer is on the brink of losing its decade-long fight for survival, laying bare the pitfalls of the cloud kitchen business.
The FMCG major acquired the maker of Ching’s Secret to make the most of its high margins, but things didn’t go to plan. Two years and a few lessons later, TCPL is trying to change that.
The six-year-old startup has built a nearly Rs 1,000 crore personal care business on the back of a buzzy brand, marketing and a push into offline retail. How far can it go?

Editor's note: A little over two years ago, when we first wrote about Mamaearth, the baby care startup had built a Rs 100 crore brand and was expanding into dozens of product lines across personal care. The company had said it was targeting Rs 500 crore in turnover in three years, and the sentiment at the time among industry analysts was that the (then) mostly online brand would find it tough. The concern, they pointed out, was that the rapid addition of products could lead to a diffusion of the value of the brand and the management’s bandwidth. In the 2021-22 fiscal year, Mamaearth (Honasa Consumer Pvt. Ltd) generated Rs 943 crore in revenue from operations, double the Rs 460 crore it had recorded the previous year. The company also turned a marginal profit in 2020-21 (excluding a one-time expense from a fall in the value of certain preference shares), as well as in the latest fiscal year. From six products when Varun Alagh and Ghazal Alagh started it in 2016 to more than 300 now, across online and offline channels, the …
Bistro may look like a response to Swiggy and Rapido’s 10-minute food delivery apps, but the similarities end at affordability—the playbooks are fundamentally different.
The food-tech pioneer is on the brink of losing its decade-long fight for survival, laying bare the pitfalls of the cloud kitchen business.
The FMCG major acquired the maker of Ching’s Secret to make the most of its high margins, but things didn’t go to plan. Two years and a few lessons later, TCPL is trying to change that.
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