Beauty tycoon Mrs. Ghazal Alagh’s Mamaearth

Ghazal Alagh, an Indian entrepreneur, is the co-founder and chief innovation officer of Mamaearth, a subsidiary of Honasa Consumer Private Limited.  She has a net worth of $17 million. 

Alagh began her career as a corporate trainer at NIIT, and to kick start her “entrepreneurial journey,” she began “Diet Expert,” a health start-up for personalized diets. She founded Mamaearth with her husband in 2016. Ghazal was also a panelist on Shark Tank India (season 1).

Most entrepreneurs set out to address a problem they face, and Ghazal Alagh was no exception. She had no prior experience leading startups, but she aspired to become an entrepreneur after becoming a mother. 

Alagh considers having power means having the ability to change things, and she may have been able to show this through her own experience. She didn’t give up when faced with the challenge of caring for her first kid, who was born with an allergy to commercially available newborn care products, rather, she saw it as an opportunity to create something that could benefit thousands of people like her child and add value to the market.

She founded Mamaearth when she and her husband were first-time parents and couldn’t find toxin-free baby consumer goods. Since its beginning five years ago, the personal-care brand has produced toxin-free, animal cruelty-free products that also focus on environmental positivity. Every order placed on its website results in the planting of a sapling, which is linked to the order.

But nothing comes easy, does it?

Many millennial parents were going through the same thing just like Ghazal and her husband, but one of the major challenges they faced was convincing them to trust a new product and brand. 

Also, Alagh, a self-made woman and a mother of two, has not escaped the skepticism held by some members of society who are still trying to accept the idea that women can successfully balance jobs and the home, and often even better than men. 

Alagh’s most important lessons over the years have been to invest in people—”hire for tomorrow, not yesterday”—to use technology to bridge gaps, to build brick-by-brick, and stay connected to consumers.

Honasa Consumer, Mamaearth’s parent company, has also recently ventured into skincare brands, hydration-based Aqualogica and Ayurvedic-based Ayuga. Alagh’s goal is to become the first choice for Indian millennials in the beauty and personal-care segment, as well as to develop more personal-care brands and expand into markets beyond India. 

Their most recent round of funding, which will be used to expand their portfolio, increased their valuation to more than $1 billion, making them the year’s first unicorn. While the brand initially focused on metros, it is now expanding into tier II and beyond.

Ghazal Alagh founded Mamaearth, a lucrative D2C unicorn enterprise, in less than six years. The start-up, which has a market value of approximately $1.2 billion and already has 10 million customers, is also reportedly getting ready to launch its IPO as early as next year.

Let’s take a look at Mamaearth’s financial affairs:

Mamaearth has been named the best-performing PE-backed company in India in the Practus Hurun India PE Performers 2022 report. The company raised $52 million in its Series F funding round, which was steered by its initial backer, Sequoia, to become the first unicorn of this year, and has risen to prominence in the direct-to-consumer (D2C) domain for beauty and skincare, and this latest round valued it at around $1.07 billion. 

Mamaearth was primarily sold through D2C channels, then through online marketplaces, before expanding offline into nearly 40,000 stores in over 100 cities. Despite being the first unicorn of 2022 and the 44th since January 2021, Mamaearth stands out from the majority of unicorns as it was one of the few to become profitable in FY21, with a four-fold increase in its collection.

The gross profitability statistics are also very positive, and if we compare it to the listed FMCG peers, it will most likely be in the top 5% of the quarter. According to its annual financial statements filed with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, Mamaearth earned Rs 461 crore in operating revenue in FY21, up from Rs 109.8 crore in FY20 (MCA). During FY21, the company generated 98% of its revenue from domestic sales (India), while global sales grew 9.5x.

Company Overview:

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