[Funding alert] Purplle raises $45M from Sequoia, others; IvyCap makes partial exit with 22X returns

Mumbai-based D2C e-beauty brand Purplleon Monday said it raised $45 million in a funding round from Sequoia Capital India, along with existing investors Verlinvest, Blume Ventures, and JSW Ventures.

The D2C brand also saw its early investor IvyCap Ventures partially exiting the company at an exit value of $45 million with 22X returns. IvyCap’s Fund 1 had invested $2 million (Rs 15 crore) in 2015, and the VC will continue to be a stakeholder in Purplle through its Fund 2 investment.  

Founded by Vikram Gupta in 2011, IvyCap Ventures — a homegrown venture capital fund management company — manages Rs 1,500 crore across three funds.

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Speaking on the exit, Vikram Gupta, Founder and 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.”

He added, “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.”

Founded in 2012 by Manish Taneja and Rahul Dash, e-beauty brand Purplle.com has over six million user base and three million monthly active visitors. It has over 700 brands with nearly 50,000 products available on its website and app.

The brand differentiates itself by providing a highly personalised digital shopping experience for consumers through its app by creating detailed user personas, enabling customers to test make-up, and recommending products based on personality, search keywords, and purchase behaviour.

The startup had raised its Series C funding at the end of 2019 from Goldman Sachs and Verlinvest.

Discussing the transaction, Manish Taneja, Co-founder and CEO Purplle, said, “IvyCap Ventures has been instrumental in fuelling Purplle’s expansion, being our Series A investor. Even with a COVID year, we have delivered over 90 percent GMV CAGR for the last three 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,” Manish added. 

“We are excited to partner with Purplle, as we believe they have cracked the beauty playbook of value retailing with three 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 percent to 25 percent over the next decade,” Sakshi Chopra, Principal, Sequoia India, said.