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Falguni Nayar

About Falguni Nayar

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Who is Falguni Nayar?

Falguni Nayar has donned several hats in her three-and-a-half-decade career. Born and raised in a Gujarati family in Mumbai, she began her career as a management consultant with AF Ferguson and Co in 1985 after graduating from IIM Ahmedabad. She then went on to work at Kotak Mahindra Group in various roles for 19 years before deciding to start her entrepreneurial adventure, risking her family funds. She had set up Kotak’s international operations in New York and London. When she left Kotak in 2012, she was the Managing Director of its institutional equities and investment banking divisions.
 

Falguni Nayar and Nykaa

To address the beauty needs of women, she started Nykaa in 2012 with no prior experience in retail, beauty or technology. She was just a few months shy of turning 50 then.
 
Her first and the only tweet, which has now become iconic, came on October 29, 2012, a day before Nykaa’s website went live.
 
Nine years later, on November 2021, she became India’s richest self-made woman with a net worth of $7 billion. Falguni Nayar and her family still own a 56.56% stake after the company’s listing. With a market capitalisation of $14 billion, Nykaa has comfortably broken into the club of India’s top 100 most valuable companies. At the 52nd spot, it is ahead of the likes of Godrej Consumer, Bharat Petroleum and IndiGo.
 
Building on her experience as a banker, Nayar has created a capital-efficient and asset-light business model. Before its $720-million IPO, Nykaa had raised only $100 million in equity.
 

About Nykaa

Nykaa stands as an outlier in the startup space as a profitable company. In FY21, it posted a profit of $8 million on a revenue of nearly $330 million. Startups that have recently gone public or are in the process to doing so, such as Zomato, Policybazaar, Mobikwik, Paytm, Oyo Rooms and Pharmeasy, are all loss-making.

Latest Updates on Falguni Nayar

Premium

TPG Capital to sell Nykaa shares worth Rs 1,000 cr via block deal on Friday

American private equity firm TPG Capital is likely to sell shares of Nykaa worth Rs 1,000 crore through a block deal

Updated On: 17 Nov 2022 | 9:33 PM IST

India at 75: Tatas to Naik, Murthy - 25 towering business leaders of India

Some are 'Midnight's Children' whose pre-Independence businesses bloomed after 1947, some 'Licence Raj Warriors' who refused to let red-tapeism slow them down. A look at 25 towering business leaders

Updated On: 12 Aug 2022 | 12:51 PM IST
Premium

Nykaa consolidated net profit rises 42% to Rs 5 crore in June quarter

The consolidated revenue from operations of Nykaa increased by 41 per cent to Rs 1,148.42 crore during the reported quarter from Rs 816.99 crore in June 2021 quarter.

Updated On: 05 Aug 2022 | 11:18 PM IST
Premium

Nykaa reports 49% drop in quarterly net profit as expenses surge

The cosmetics-to-fashion platform, headed by Falguni Nayar, has said its marketing expenses in 2020 came in exceptionally low as it did not spend as much on advertising due to the pandemic

Updated On: 28 May 2022 | 12:05 AM IST
Premium

Wish I had a co-founder to tide over tech struggles initially: Nykaa CEO

Falguni Nayar, an investment banker-turned-entrepreneur, said she had no idea about retail or technology when she decided to take the entrepreneurial plunge in 2012

Updated On: 17 May 2022 | 4:27 PM IST

India to soon become 5th largest beauty market: Nykaa chairperson

FSN E-Commerce Ventures Ltd, which runs Nykaa, had posted about 57 per cent decline in consolidated profit after tax to Rs 29 crore in the third quarter

Updated On: 24 Feb 2022 | 12:39 AM IST

More women need to embrace STEM edu, have access to internet: Nykaa CEO

More women getting access to internet and technological resources and embracing STEM education will help strengthen their participation in workforce Nykaa founder and CEO Falguni Nayar

Updated On: 17 Dec 2021 | 3:38 PM IST