Two early angel investors in online beauty and makeup products retailer Purplle have secured a 40X return on their angel investment over a nine-year period, after both investors offloaded their shareholding to Goldman Sachs in a secondary exit deal, said two people aware of the development.
Angel investors Abhinav Sinha and Anirudha Gopalakrishnan who are former Fidelity Investments executives invested ₹25 lakhs and ₹20 lakhs respectively when Purplle was launched in December 2011, said the first person mentioned above requesting anonymity.
Sinha made ₹10 crore after selling his shares to Goldman Sachs, while Gopalakrishnan secured ₹8 crore on his secondary exit, the person mentioned above said. Apart from secondary exits to angels, a dozen employees at Purplle redeemed their ESOPs in June for a combined value of ₹18.5 crore, the person added.
Founded by Rahul Dash and Manish Taneja, Purplle sells makeup products and fashion accessories, as well as wellness products for men and women on its website. Purplle’s existing investors, including Blume Ventures, IvyCap Ventures and JSW Ventures
Confirming the development, the startup’s co-founder Taneja told Mint that the e-commerce portal achieved total sales worth $50 million in gross merchandise value (GMV) in 2019, and that it’s targeting to achieve GMV sales worth $85-100 million by the end of 2020.
Purplle currently works with around 800 beauty and personal care brands, sourcing products directly from them. Taneja said that the startup plans to add a total of 1400 brands by end of 2020. The platform also stocks around 40,000 stock keeping units (SKUs), which is also expected to go up to 60,000 to 70,000 by the end of this year, according to Taneja.
He added that during the lockdown, Purplle’s share of sales from metro cities dropped to just 15%, while shares of sales from Tier-2 and Tier-2 towns increased to almost 70% in the last three months.
Besides selling renowned brands, Purplle also has its own private label, along the lines of its rival, Nykaa. It also provides makeup content and guided videos from bloggers. Purplle competes directly and indirectly with Nykaa, which was founded by veteran investment banker Falguni Nayar.
This article was first published on livemint.com.
