when the founder Falguni Nayar Started entrepreneurship in 2012, she was around 50 years old with almost 20 years of experience as an investment banker. Almost a decade later, the startup he launched is now worth more than some of India’s biggest legacy businesses after a stellar debut on the stock exchanges.

In the process, she has become
richest self-made woman In India, is
among the 20 richest people in the country, and is worth more than its peers, who have either listed their startup or are in the process of doing so. (All of these people are men, except Savitri Jindal – India’s richest woman – and Upasana Taku, MobiKwik cofounder.)

How did she get here? Well, on my own.

Nykaa, in its early years, was fully funded by Falguni Nair and her husband Sanjay Nair – chief executive officer of private equity major KKR & Company in India. As she said, the focus was on building an inventory-based business
In a 2017 interview to The Economic Times, “The company ran on family funds for two years as I did not want to raise money. I wanted to make metrics,” Nair had said then. “By the time I went to investors, we had good momentum. We had access, because my husband and I were both bankers.

The company became a unicorn in March 2020 itself.
After just five rounds of funding – of which only three involved institutional investors. Nykaa is also profitable – a rarity among Indian startups.

pre-hero day

A graduate of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, Nair spent a major part of his career at Kotak Mahindra Capital Company. When she left in 2012, she was the managing director and head of its institutional equities business.

Born and brought up in a Gujarati family, his father ran a small bearing company, his mother assisted him. Domestic chatter revolved around investing, the stock market and trading. “Besides, I’m Gujarati,”
She said in a 2017 interview, It seems that entrepreneurship was in his blood.

building construction

For any business, the first year is a honeymoon period – it’s easy because you’re just designing. The next year, when the business starts growing, is important,
Nayyar had said in a 2017 interview, “The person leading the operation could not cope with 30 orders a day and left. We had to learn how to ship packages and set up an enterprise resource planning system,” she had said then.

Today,
Nykaa is one of the few profitable e-tailers in India, It reported a net profit of Rs 61.96 crore for the financial year ended March 31, as against a net loss of Rs 16.34 crore in the year-ago period. Revenue grew 38% year-on-year to Rs 2,453 crore in FY2011.

Tier II and III cities are driving growth in the post-pandemic era. According to a source familiar with the firm’s metrics, non-metros have seen a sharper jump in demand than metros. In its DRHP, Nykaa has stated that Tier II and III cities contributed 64% of revenue in FY2011 compared to 59% in FY11. “Being an omnichannel retailer helped us during the COVID-19 crisis,”
Nair told ET last year during the peak of the pandemic, “We now have 70 stores in 30 cities across the country. We basically designed our website to do hyperlocal deliveries for essential products, but only from our stores.”

The company has diversified from selling third party beauty products to launching its own brands and entering the fashion business. Fashion now accounts for 20% of total sales. While its private labels are growing, they are still relatively small.

In the fiscal year ended March 31, Nykaa’s gross merchandise value (GMV) – the total value of goods sold in a given period – rose more than 50% to about Rs 4,046 crore.

Then an IPO was inevitable.

IPO and listing

FSN E-Commerce Ventures, the parent company of India’s largest cosmetics retailer Nykaa,
Launched its IPO on 28 October To raise up to Rs 5,352 crore by offering shares in the price band of Rs 1,085-1,125. the issue was
subscribed About 82 times.

On Wednesday, Nykaa listed at an almost 80% premium and ended the day 96.15% higher than its issue price at Rs 2,206.70 – which translates to a market capitalization of Rs 1,04,360.85 crore on the first day. The net worth of the Nair family is more than half.

“I started Nykaa at the age of 50 without any experience. I hope the Nayaka Yatra can inspire each one of you to become the hero (heroine) of your life,” Nayar said at the opening bell.