Amidst a crowded market of beauty and colour cosmetics brands, direct-to-consumer startup Renee Cosmetics is expecting to double its revenue to Rs 350-400 crore by the end of this fiscal. The startup’s growth comes on the back of a 10-11% annual growth rate in India’s $20-billion beauty and personal care market, which is the fastest in the world, as per a report by Redseer and Nykaa.
In FY24, Renee Cosmetics managed to double its revenue from operations to Rs 191.7 crore in its fourth year of business, while losses widened 88% to Rs 61.5 crore, mainly because of over Rs 100 crore of advertising and promotional expenses.“Losses may have grown because of investments in our brand-creation process. Our expenses were not related to direct sales but more related to content creation, marketing and growing offline channels. FY24 was more like a foundation year for us,” co-founder Ashutosh Valani told FE.
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He added that the company is nearly profitable in Q3 but will take another fiscal to show full-year profitability. “In October, we had about Rs 38 crore in revenue, it was Rs 35 crore in November and we are on our way to hitting Rs 38-40 crore in December. At this kind of volume, it is difficult to make losses anymore,” he added.
To expand the offline reach of its products, the company plans to increase the number of its stores or kiosks to about 50 next year, from the current 17. To be sure, it still gets 65% of its revenue from online channels — e-commerce, quick commerce and its website —, among which sales from quick commerce apps generate about 10% of its topline.
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“We are not very heavy on EBOs because we are a sub-Rs 500 brand. We don’t think that this model is sustainable for us. So we open our kiosks in premium malls and airports where there is a lot of footfall of people with an intent to buy,” Valani noted.The company was founded by former Beardo co-founders Priyank Shah and Valani and actress Aashka Goradia Goble. It has so far raised $48.5 million from investors such as Evolvence India,
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