Kedaara Capital invested $75 million in the company last fortnight.
Purplle is expected to utilise the fresh funds for acquisitions and its offline retail push.
The online beauty marketplace
is in talks to buy a controlling stake in premium cosmetics and skincare brand Faces Cosmetics and is looking at multiple other tuck-in acquisitions to scale up its presence in the beauty space, executives aware of its plans have told ET. Its own beauty brands include Good Vibes, NY Bae and Purplle.
In March, the firm
raised $45 million (about Rs 330 crore) from investors led by Sequoia Capital India and existing ones such as Verlinvest, Blume Ventures and JSW Ventures. It had raised $30 million in Series C funding, led by Goldman Sachs at the end of 2019.
Founded in 2012 by Manish Taneja and Rahul Dash, Purplle has seven million monthly active users. The beauty e-tailer sells over 1,000 brands with nearly 50,000 products on its website and app, the company said.
“The last two years have been very good, except, of course, the chaos for a few months. We are growing at close to 80% year-on-year. We are right now at Rs 100 crore of monthly gross merchandise value (GMV) and this is an all-time high,” Taneja told ET in October. GMV in e-commerce parlance refers to the total value of goods sold, including discounts but excluding returns.
Purplle is a largely online platform, but its private brand Good Vibes is also present in retail stores, especially in eastern India. Good Vibes does about Rs 150 crore in sales, Taneja had told ET. One-third of Purplle’s total business comes from in-house labels. Purplle was
one of the nominees in the Comeback Kid category at The Economic Times Startup Awards 2021.
The beauty space has been abuzz over the last few months.
Omnichannel beauty retailer
, which
had a bumper market debut last week,
acquired skincare brand Dot & Key earlier this year. Good Glamm Group
recently bought out baby and mother care brand The Moms Co. and is said to be
in advanced talks to acquire premium beauty brand St Botanica.
Mamaearth, too,
has raised $50 million in a round led by Belgian investment fund Sofina Ventures, valuing the D2C personal care brand at $730 million.
