New Delhi: Sequoia Capital-backed online beauty products marketplace Purplle has joined the coveted unicorn club after the Mumbai-based company raised $33 million as a part of its Series E funding round led by South Korea’s Paramark Ventures.
Existing investors Premji Invest, Blume Ventures, and homegrown private equity firm Kedaara Capital also participated in the funding round, the company said in a statement on June 9th. With the latest fundraise, the firm has raised $215 million in equity funding to date, Purplle said.
The company plans to use the fresh funds for investing in technology and penetrating deeper into India, its co-founder and chief executive officer Manish Taneja said. Purplle will also scale its private brands, and industry-first innovations, Taneja said. Purplle becomes India’s 102nd unicorn or a startup valued at $1 billion or more.
Founded by IIT Delhi alumnus Taneja, and IIT Kharagpur and IIM Ahmedabad alumnus Rahul Dash in 2012, Purplle runs a beauty and personal care e-commerce platform. The company counts Goldman Sachs, JSW Ventures along with Blume Ventures, Kedaara Capital, and billionaire Azim Premji’s Premji Invest as it backers.
“Purplle is addressing the enormous vacuum in the beauty and personal care industry in India in a way that the rising demand from massive Indian consumers can be best served beyond the limited set of customers in a few major cities,” said Chunsoo Kim, Founder and Managing Partner of Paramark Ventures.