MyGlamm, a direct-to-consumer beauty brand in India that sells most of its products through its own website, app, and retail touchpoints, announced Monday that it had raised $ 71.3 million in a round of funding has as the Mumbai-based company plans to scale its business in the South Asian market.
The startup raised $ 23.5 million in its quadruple Series C funding round from Amazon, Ascent Capital, and Wipro in March of this year. On Monday it was said to have added another $ 47.8 million as part of the round – which has now been completed.
Accel led the investment in the new tranche, while existing MyGlamm investors – Bessemer Venture Partners, L’Occitane, Ascent, Amazon, Mankekar Family, Trifecta and Strides Ventures – also participated, Darpan Sanghvi, founder and CEO of MyGlamm, told TechCrunch in an interview.
Sanghvi founded MyGlamm in 2017 after changing his previous company. He remembered the struggle he faced to raise money for a direct-to-consumer brand that wasn’t that popular in the world’s second largest internet market just five years ago. To make matters worse, MyGlamm was also one of the last direct-to-consumer startups to start its journey at the time.
MyGlamm website
The startup now acts as the house of brands in the fields of beauty and body care. “We are active in the fields of make-up, skin care, hair care, bath and body and body care. Unlike other brands, we have managed to successfully build a master brand across all categories, ”he said in a video call.
“The reason we were able to build this is because we are really aimed directly at consumers. It allows us to communicate with them very directly, ”he said, adding that most other companies in the industry rely on third-party marketplaces for their sales.
He attributed the startup’s recent growth, which sells over 800 SKUs in various categories (up from 600 in March), to its newly discovered user acquisition strategy. In August, the startup acquired POPxo, a startup that has built a community around content, influencers and retail and serves over 60 million monthly active users.
“The commerce engine content has become our biggest trench,” he said. “We gain 250,000 new users every month without spending any real money.”
POPxo, led by Priyanka Gill, contacts nearly 300,000 users each month to collect their feedback and new product ideas. Gill said on a video call that “CAC (Cost of Customer Acquisition) is the game in this line of business and POPxo has solved that problem,” she said, adding that POPxo, which is run as a fairly independent company, is actively pursuing it to reach over 100 million users by March next year.
The startup also has 15,000 point-of-sale touchpoints in the physical world across India. The physical presence, which accounts for 40% of today’s sales, “was critical to scale in the country,” said Sanghvi.
“We believe the time has come to build first-CPG digital brands with a strong focus on content-to-commerce,” said Anand Daniel, partner at Accel, in a statement.
“COVID has only cemented that belief. The unique combination of content paired with a convincing product line convinced us to lead this round in MyGlamm. We look forward to partnering with Darpan, Priyanka and the MyGlamm team and look forward to building the next generation CPG giant, ”he said.
The startup plans to use the fresh funds to expand its product development, data science and technology research teams. It is also working to expand its offline presence and expand the digital reach of POPxo.
The new investment comes at a time when Indian startups are raising record capital and a handful of mature companies are starting to explore the public markets. Last week, Tribe Capital’s investment crowned BlackBuck’s 16th unicorn this year, up from eleven last year and six in 2019. Grocery delivery startup Zomato made a stellar IPO last week, and financial services companies MobiKwik and Paytm also have their IPOs submitted. Insurance aggregator service PolicyBazaar and online beauty e-commerce company Nykaa are also expected to submit their documents for the IPO in the coming weeks.