Category: Young Turks

The Good Glamm Group finds a doubles partner in Serena Williams as it seeks to create a ‘Global Beauty Brand From India’

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

Listen to the Article (6 Minutes)

Amazon-backed The Good Glamm Group has joined hands with tennis superstar Serena Williams under a joint venture partnership to launch a beauty brand in the US. The first batch of “WYN BEAUTY by Serena Williams” products will start retailing on April 7.

“It’s a dream come true. Serena is beyond a celebrity. She is an inspiration. A true icon. The JV came about because of our audacious vision and dream: can there be a global beauty company coming out of India? If we want to be a global beauty company, we should be able to make a dent in the U.S. market,” said Darpan Sanghvi, Group Founder & CEO, The Good Glamm Group.

In an exclusive conversation with CNBC-TV18, Sanghvi said the company has been working closely with the celebrity athlete over the last 2.5 years to launch WYN BEAUTY by Serena Williams.

“The vision for the products are a reflection of Serena. She has been poetry in motion on the court and that’s how she visualized her make-up line as well,” said Sanghvi.

The initial launch will see the introduction of 91 shades across 10 products in the face, lip and eye categories in an exclusive distribution partnership with American beauty retailer Ulta Beauty. The products will be sold across 685 Ulta stores and the brand’s direct-to-consumer platform—wynbeauty.com. The brand will solely remain focused on the U.S. market before foraying into India and other global markets in 12 months.

The WYN Beauty brand names are inspired by Serena Williams’ match book affirmations such as Brave, Momentum, Push, Build and Move, among others. The products are being manufactured in the US and Europe, with pricing in the ‘prestige’ range of $20–$30.

The launch not only marks a milestone for the Good Glamm Group as it co-creates a ‘global beauty brand by an Indian company’, but it also seeks to position the sporting icon in the league of fast-growing beauty brands by celebrities such as Rihanna, Kylie Jenner, Selena Gomez, Ariana Grande and even Serena Williams’ rival at one time—Maria Sharapova.

As many as 43 celebrity beauty brands tracked by NielsonIQ collectively surpassed $1 billion in sales for the first time in 2023. Brands with star power grew at nearly 60%, which was faster than the overall beauty industry growth of 11%.

Commenting on the competition among celebrity-led beauty brands, Sanghvi highlighted that WYN Beauty’s differentiating factor comes at two levels: the emotion Serena Williams can evoke from the brand point of view alongside the product benefit and what it does for the customer.

What will the Serena Williams partnership do for The Good Glamm Group?

Good Glamm Group’s target of listing on the Indian public markets by Diwali 2025 as the first beauty or consumer company with a global brand in its portfolio is one of the key factors behind the JV with Serena Williams, according to Sanghvi.

“The company could have a mix of developing, fast-growing geographies like India and a highly-developed mature market like the U.S., which could provide you with a much higher margin profile,” he said.

Between FY21 and FY23, the company scaled its revenue from ₹49 crore to ₹640 crore. Given the expenditure on brand acquisitions and global forays, the company saw its losses balloon to ₹273 crore in FY22. It is yet to file its FY23 financials.

“In FY24, we focused on cost-cutting to become profitable at the group level in FY25, which is the year for all the bets to start delivering profits to successfully go public as a profitable and predictable company,” explained Sanghvi.

Founded by Darpan Sanghvi, Priyanka Gill and Naiyya Saggi in 2021, The Good Glamm Group operates with a portfolio of DTC beauty and personal care brands such as MyGlamm, The Moms Co, Sirona, Organic Harvest, POPxo, ScoopWhoop, MissMalini and BabyChakra, among others. Currently, the commerce-to-content platform has a transacting consumer base of 18 million users.

Expecting the momentum to continue, Sanghvi said the user base could reach 40 million in the next 4–5 years, adding 5–6 million transacting customers every year.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

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Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

‘Easy money poses risk; companies die of indigestion, not starvation’: BookMyShow CEO

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Despite witnessing a challenging year, the Indian startup ecosystem exhibit resilience and a poised stance for positive growth in 2024. Ashish Hemrajani, the CEO and co-founder of BookMyShow, said that ease of money in recent years posed challenges for the companies to grow.

However, he believes the investors are now adopting a more cautious approach, asking hard questions and emphasising the importance of factors like bottom line, EBITDA, and PAT, which signals a departure from the ‘growth at any cost’ mentality.

“Money was too easy, that was the problem,” Hemrajan pointed out a significant shift in the market sentiment. “In terms of the ecosystem change, I kept saying this for many years, and I think it wasn’t taken seriously that more companies die out of indigestion than starvation,” he said in a conversation with CNBC-TV18’s Shereen Bhan.

“Today, with the money that’s in the market, there is a little more intelligence behind that, where people are asking some real hard questions, they are a little more circumspect. Earlier, it was growth at any cost, GMV, run on a treadmill, acquire at any cost. Suddenly somebody has woken up and said, there’s a thing called bottom line, and there is a thing called an EBITDA, and there’s a thing called PAT, and we shouldn’t talk about adjusted EBITDAs, and now there’s no adjustments anymore. And you’ve you stopped seeing that narrative,” he added.

The CEO expressed optimism about the natural market cycles, stating, “In business, these cycles are actually good for you. These seven-year, 10-year cycles are really good.” Reflecting on past predictions about India mirroring the paths of the US or China, Hemrajani emphasised the uniqueness of the Indian market, “India would always go the India way,” he said. He sees stability and promising growth spurts in the current phase, particularly in the cleaning up of various sectors.

Highlighting BookMyShow’s resilience during the pandemic, Hemrajani shared the positive outcome of the company’s collaborative efforts with the government, “At BookMyShow, we had gone down to zero, we had no revenue. We worked with the government during the pandemic, with the GST Council. They brought down GST on live events to 18%, and it’s zero percent for tickets below ₹500.”

He further revealed ongoing discussions with the government for a staggered tax structure of zero percent, 12%, and 18%, showcasing a mutually beneficial partnership focused on logical and reasoned policies for the tourism, hotel, and airline industries.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

25% of AI code in the world is written in India: Haptik CEO

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

Listen to the Article (6 Minutes)

One out of every four artificial intelligence-related code deposits on GitHub globally comes from India, said Aakrit Vaish, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Co-Founder, Haptik. The startup works in the enterprise conversational AI platform domain and was founded in August 2013.

“One out of every four AI-related code deposits on GitHub, globally comes from India. That is just amazing—25% of the code that’s being written is being written over here. Every sixth researcher in AI in the world is Indian,” Vaish told CNBC-TV18 during a panel discussion at the ongoing Mumbai Tech Week.

Citing examples of Khan Academy building the AI tutor or three startups building AI tools for farmers to aid in real-time crop detection, the Haptik CEO further highlighted the impact of AI on India and its role in addressing India First problems.

“This is like citizen-first services, and it is where I think the power of AI will first start being seen in the next few months.”

On capital investment trends in startups, the Haptik CEO, while noting that it continues to be fairly aggressive, underlined that many have not learned from mistakes. The mid-stage of investing has “disappeared,” as per Vaish.

“A lot of the middle stage companies will either become what we call zombies, who just remain in existence, fighting month on month, or unlike previous cycles when there were forced M&As… And then there’s definitely going to be a few types of companies, even in the middle stage, who will break out and then go to the next stage, those are the ones who will clean up their act and move forward.”

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella also envisions the tech giant as India’s AI Copilot, steering the nation into the realm of AI advancements. Nadella expressed this commitment during an exclusive interview with CNBC-TV18 on Wednesday, February 7. He pointed out areas such as software development and frontline work in retail and healthcare that are experiencing significant growth due to AI integration.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Fantasy sports player Dream11 gets 55 million new users in 2023 — 72% from smaller cities

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

Listen to the Article (6 Minutes)

India’s fantasy sports platform Dream11 saw a remarkable addition of 55 million new users in the past year (2023) alone. CEO and Co-Founder Harsh Jain, in a conversation with CNBC-TV18, shared insights into the platform’s phenomenal growth, disclosing that an impressive 72% of these new users originate from beyond the top 100 cities in India.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Startups should be chasing sustainable profitability & not IPOs, says PhonePe CEO

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

Listen to the Article (6 Minutes)

Apple co-founder Steve Jobs famously remarked, “I’m convinced that about half of what separates successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance.”

CNBC-TV18 annually recognises and applauds this persistence in the pursuit of entrepreneurial visions by honouring two emerging companies at the India Business Leader Awards (IBLA).

At the CNBC-TV18 IBLA 2023, PhonePe was crowned the Young Turk of the Year. The fintech giant, backed by Walmart, serves two out of three Indians, totalling 500 million users. As the leading player in UPI payments, the platform processes a staggering five billion digital transactions each month, facilitating over 35 million merchants in accepting digital payments.

In 2023, PhonePe embarked on a year of new beginnings, expanding its vision beyond payments. The company diversified into hyperlocal e-commerce, insurance, stock broking, lending, wealth management, and even introduced a challenger app to the ubiquitous Google Play Store.

The Young Turk Startup of the Year at CNBC-TV18 IBLA 2023 was awarded to BluSmart. This startup is transforming urban mobility by electrifying its fleet and fundamentally altering the way people move.

Founded just four years ago, BluSmart has completed over 10 million rides, covering a distance of 325 million kilometres and saving more than 21,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions. Racing towards a greener future, the company aims to double its fleet to 10,000 electric cars by March 2024.

To delve into the journeys and future trajectories of these companies, CNBC-TV18 engaged in discussions with Sameer Nigam, Founder & CEO of PhonePe, and Anmol Jaggi, Co-Founder & CEO of BluSmart.

Watch the accompanying video for the entire discussion.

Elon Musk forms several ‘X Holdings’ companies to fund potential Twitter buyout

3 Mins Read

Thursday’s filing dispelled some doubts, though Musk still has work to do. He and his advisers will spend the coming days vetting potential investors for the equity portion of his offer, according to people familiar with the matter

KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow