Sequoia Capital India has successfully pre-empted market needs with early investments in innovative startups, and has partnered withIndian unicorns like BYJU’S, OYO, Ola, Zomato, and Freshworks..
IvyCap Ventures, one of the leading homegrown venture capital fund, announced the sale of its fund 1 stake of Purplle at an exit value of $45 M (INR 330crore), where the fund 1 had invested $2M (INR 15 crore) in 2015. IvyCap will continue to be a shareholder in the company through its Fund 2 investment. While the three existing investors reinforced their commitment, Purplle welcomed Sequoia Capital India as an investor.
IvyCap Ventures was instrumental in fuelling Purplle’s expansion, being a Series A investor. On achieving 22X return, Vikram Gupta, Founder & Managing Partners, IvyCap Ventures, said, “We had invested in Purplle.com from our Fund 1 and Fund 2. When we first invested in Purplle in 2015 we were confident that technology would disrupt and redefine the beauty industry in India. With an initial investment of $2M from our Fund 1 growing by manifolds to USD 45M, our partnership has been rewarding. We continue to believe in the growths of the company and therefore we have retained our stake for Fund 2. Our belief in the brand the vision of its founders ‘Beauty for All’, enabled us to generate 1.35x of our entire Fund 1 in Purplle.”
Discussing about the transaction, Manish Taneja, Co-founder & CEO Purplle.com, said, “IvyCap Ventures has been instrumental in fuelling Purplle’s expansion, being our Series A investor. Even with a Covid year, we have delivered>90%GMV CAGR for the last 3 years. Reinvestment from partners such as Verlinvest, JSW Ventures, and Blume Ventures, is a testament to the conviction of our investors. Our recent partnership with Sequoia Capital India will further foster our ambition of creating a multibillion-dollar, digital first, beauty and personal care enterprise.”
Sequoia Capital India has successfully pre-empted market needs with early investments in innovative startups, and has partnered withIndian unicorns like BYJU’S, OYO, Ola, Zomato, and Freshworks..
“We are seeing a growing trend towards the gentrification of ecommerce 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.”Sakshi Chopra, Principal, Sequoia India
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 it’s position as a market leader in the beauty ecommerce segment.”
Source: Business World
