Main Highlights
- Minimalist secured $15 million in a Series A investment round headed by Sequoia India and including participation from Unilever Ventures.
- The money will be used to improve R&D, expand infrastructure, and go worldwide.
- Minimalist presently offers 20 items in its portfolio, which include serums, moisturizers, toners, and other skincare products, and the majority of its goods are market agnostic.
- To capitalize on this, the firm leverages its website and social media platforms such as Instagram to give skin education.
Minimalist, a Mumbai-based skincare firm, recently secured $15 million in a Series A investment round headed by Sequoia India and including participation from Unilever Ventures. According to Mohit Yadav, Co-founder, the money will be used to improve R&D, expand infrastructure, and go worldwide.
“Right now, Minimalist is only accessible in India, but the aim is to expand into foreign markets, beginning with South Asia, in the next 6-12 months,” adds Mohit. Mohit comments on Unilever Ventures‘ participation, saying that as a global capital, it offers a lot of strategic assets to the firm aside from the financial element.
Minimalist’s Products
Minimalist presently offers 20 items in its portfolio, which include serums, moisturizers, toners, and other skincare products, and the majority of its goods are market agnostic. “Expansion in that sense is simpler for us since the items are not intended for a certain location or group of people,” adds Mohit.
He explains that Minimalist is an online-only company, which is how they got started in India. The brand collaborated with a number of prominent online marketplaces, including Amazon, Nykaa, and others.
Minimalist, a skincare company founded in 2020, is quickly gaining popularity due to its unique and honest approach. The brand, which is synonymous with Transparent Beauty, offers a diverse selection of products for a variety of skin types. Minimalist is known to be open about the substances they utilize in their goods. Their goal is to produce environmentally friendly products. Some of the brand’s best-selling products are Niacinamide, Salicylic Acid, Alpha Arbutin, and AHA PHA BHA peel.
Before they are released to the public, all of their goods are thoroughly tested for safety. They have their own internal production infrastructure, and each product is subjected to a battery of stringent safety testing before it is packaged. Each formulation has been authorized by the relevant Drug Authority. After being created, the goods are subjected to a 12-point quality check in a government-approved laboratory. Only then will the goods be delivered to you.
“Any new market that we are looking at right now, we will start with the region’s main online marketplaces and then gradually go into offline retail,” he says.
The company has enormous ambitions over the next three to five years, starting with general trade and progressing to modern trade and their own retail channel, but everything will come in stages. The first stage, according to Mohit, would be to collaborate with excellent chains, and he adds, “in India, we are about to establish our own retail through Nykaa.”
Minimalist’s Growth
He goes on to say that the firm saw remarkable growth in nine months and served about a million clients. “What excites us more than the stats is how people responded to the brand,” he says. The company’s current run rate is Rs 100 crore, with ambitions to increase that to Rs 200 crore by the end of FY22.
Minimalist now serves a relatively tiny fraction of customer needs. As a result, the aim for the next six months is to broaden the portfolio to include a broader range of skincare items. “We then aim to progressively expand into additional categories so that we can offer a full range of personal care products,” Mohit continues.
Growth through education
Moving ahead, the company’s growth plan will be to educate people about skincare.
“Today, more people are interested in skincare, and they want to understand about the components and how they function on the skin. Labels are no longer the only consideration. “What is driving this development is skincare education,” said Yadav.
To capitalize on this, the firm leverages its website and social media platforms such as Instagram to give skin education. The company has experienced a strong level of engagement on its instructional social postings, confirming its view that consumers are eager for more knowledge.
“If we can promote awareness and knowledge in just one person, that person will distribute it to their friends through word-of-mouth. As a result, we believe that as skincare education expands, so will our brand,” Yardev explained. Yadav stated that the brand’s current focus will be on the domestic market.
“It’s a massive market with a lot of untapped potentials. India’s market is still in its infancy. For example, individuals are only now beginning to use sunscreen, and the vitamin C craze is also very recent. There are several holes that we can fill.”