Purplle.com closes $45M deal from Verlinvest, Sequoia Capital India, Blume Ventures & JSW Ventures; Ivy Cap partially exits with 22X gains
• Existing investors double down; Sequoia Capital India joins the cap table
• Purplle witnesses exponential growth of over 110% in Q4 2020 vis-à-vis Q4 2019 in Northern market
March 25, 2021: Purplle.com, one of India’s largest online beauty destinations, closed a $45M deal from Verlinvest, Sequoia Capital India, Blume Ventures, and JSW Ventures. While the three existing investors reinforced their commitment, Purplle welcomed Sequoia Capital India. The investment will further bolster the brand’s ambition to deliver 8-10X growth in the next 4-5 years.
On the deal, Manish Taneja, Co-founder & CEO Purplle.com, said, “We are excited to partner with Sequoia Capital India, as they foray into the online beauty industry. Reinvestment from Verlinvest, JSW Ventures, and Blume Ventures, is a testament to the conviction of our investors. Purplle has been on a robust growth trajectory. Even with a Covid year, we have delivered >90% GMV CAGR for the last 3 years. This, while scaling our private brands successfully; Good Vibes is already an INR 150 Cr brand. The investment will help to shape Purplle into a multibillion-dollar, digital-first, beauty and personal care enterprise.”
Sequoia Capital India has successfully pre-empted market needs with early investments in innovative start-ups and has partnered with Indian unicorns like BYJU’S, OYO, Ola, Zomato, and Freshworks.
“We are seeing a growing trend towards the gentrification of e-commerce in India. Consumers are making a clear distinction between distribution platforms and brands that are more relevant to them. We are excited to partner with Purplle as we believe they have cracked the beauty playbook of value retailing with 3 key tenets – a business built on high retention and low customer acquisition cost (CAC), a wide assortment of brands offering quality at best prices, and an attractive private label portfolio mix. We see Purplle emerging as a dominant beauty destination as the online beauty penetration grows from 10% to 25%+ over the next decade,” said Sakshi Chopra, Principal, Sequoia India.
For Purplle, this year brought an upsurge with the brand’s commitment to making beauty reach the comfort of every home. Purplle signed Sara Ali Khan as the first brand ambassador, rolling out the #GoPurplle campaign. The brand is witnessing a surge in overall volumes, transaction value, and an increase in users’ vis-à-vis last year.
On the investment, a year after funding Purplle’s extended Series C Round, Arjun Anand, Executive Director at Verlinvest, said, "Despite Covid, Purplle delivered remarkable growth. We believed in their mission of democratising beauty across the heartlands of India, with affordable and accessible products. Our investment this year will further enable Purplle to strengthen its position as a market leader in the beauty e-commerce segment.”
IvyCap Ventures was instrumental in fuelling Purplle’s expansion, being a Series A investor. On delivering 22X growth to IvyCap Ventures, Vikram Gupta, Founder & Managing Partners, IvyCap Ventures, said, “We have invested in Purplle.com from our Fund 1 and Fund 2. When we first invested in Purplle in 2015, we were confident that digital would disrupt and redefine the beauty industry in India. With an initial investment of INR 15 crore from our Fund 1 growing by manifolds to INR 330 crore, our partnership has been rewarding. We continue to believe in the growth of the company and therefore we have retained our stake for Fund 2. Our belief in the brand and the vision of its founders ‘Beauty for All’, enabled us to generate 1.35x of our entire Fund 1 from Purplle.”
About Purplle.com
Founded in 2012, Purplle.com is one of India’s largest e-beauty destinations with 7 million monthly active users. The beauty e-tailer has over 1000+ brands with nearly 50,000 products, available on its website and app. The company raised Series C funding at the end of 2019 from Goldman Sachs and Verlinvest.
Purplle has successfully scaled its digital-first beauty brands like Purplle, Good Vibes, NY Bae, amongst others. Good Vibes from this cohort has already become an INR 150 Cr brand and is one of the top 3 in the Naturals Skincare space on the app. Purplle has built a differentiated, highly personalized digital shopping experience for consumers through its app by creating detailed user personas, enabling customers to test make-up, and recommending products based on personality, search keywords, and purchase behaviour. With over 800 employees and growing at more than 90% percent year-on-year, Purplle is well-positioned to be a leader in the burgeoning Indian e-beauty space.
