“Kareena has partnered with us in a joint venture as an investor and co-owner,” Sugar Cosmetics founder and chief executive Vineeta Singh said. “K (Korean) beauty has taken over global skin care; this is going to be a big opportunity in India as well.”
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The financial details of the deal were not disclosed.
Quench is expected to be a Rs 100-crore business in net revenue over the next 12 months, said Singh, who is also the CEO of Sugar Cosmetics.
India, with a large population of young people with increasing disposable income, is seeing a surge in global and homegrown beauty brands and startups. Adding verve to this segment are celebrities launching and backing skincare products and new lines.
“The beauty explosion is real and is here to stay. From being a beauty market in its infancy, India is growing up in terms of awareness, education and aspiration,” Khan told ET. “It’s really an exciting time to offer beauty solutions created for diverse Indian skin concerns and climatic conditions.”
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Similar to Sugar, Quench will also create large communities on platforms like Instagram and YouTube, with the next wave of skincare products growth happening through education and content, said Singh.Khan said, “My vision for investing in Quench is a reflection of my belief in the category of simplified natural beauty and making it accessible to all.”
According to researcher Euromonitor, the beauty market in India is expected to touch $17.4 billion by 2025, up from $15.6 billion in 2022, fuelled by higher incomes and easier Internet access.
Singh, who founded Sugar Cosmetics in 2015, said she expects “hundreds of brands” to enter the country’s beauty sector.
“India is one of the fastest growing beauty markets in the world. There’s a ‘brandification’ happening in the beauty category over the past five-six years,” she said. “A lot more brands will continue to come in and there will always be niches for brands.”
The development also underscores the increasing trend of celebrities investing in startups and direct-to-consumer companies.
Also read |Bollywood stars Alia Bhatt, Katrina Kaif among celebrity investors betting big on startups
ETtechDeepika Padukone, Nayanthara and Kriti Sanon are among the actors who have launched their own beauty brands. While Nayanthara has launched skincare line 9Skin, Padukone has 82°E and Sanon’s beauty brand is called Hyphen.
Singh said she plans to list Sugar Cosmetics on the stock exchanges in the next two-three years. “The timing will depend on market conditions, but it’s definitely on the cards,” she said.
The demand for beauty products is being led by younger consumers, newer brands, smaller markets and social media influencers.
“In the next 10 years, India could have a billion people with Internet access. So social media and ecommerce will make it much easier for brands to get reach,” she said.
Khan said, “I have been tracking the D2C space for quite a while now, and it’s amazing how digitally native India has become, especially the tier 2 and 3 towns!”
Among the platforms which are rapidly scaling up the beauty business in India are Reliance Retail’s Tira, Raheja Group-owned SS Beauty which launched an exclusive store to sell Estee Lauder brands, and French retailer Sephora which has launched actor Selena Gomez’s premium cosmetics brand Rare Beauty.
Also read | Reliance launches ecommerce beauty platform Tira, to compete with Nykaa, Tata Cliq Palette, others
Then there are the existing ones like Nykaa, and Amazon and Myntra with their own beauty stores. Estee Lauder Co-backed strategic early-stage investment fund New Incubation Ventures is also scaling up investments in India in partnership with Nykaa.
“Access to delivery through ecommerce, aspiration and ambition to look like anybody in the world is driving a lot of this demand. For sugar, 50-60% business comes from outside of metros,” said Singh.