The Indian beauty brand has raised U$50m in its series D funding round led by L Catterton with participation from existing investors A91 Partners, Elevation Capital, and India Quotient, it revealed on May 31.
Speaking to CosmeticsDesign-Asia, co-founder and CEO Vineeta Singh, said this latest successful round of funding was helping the firm further its ambitions to become one of the most successful homegrown beauty brands.
“While this journey of making SUGAR as one of the top three make-up brands in India has been phenomenal, I do envision employing more than 10,000 women and a public listing. Getting to that point will be a challenge but we never shied away from aiming higher and dreaming big.”
The latest injection of funding will help to drive the brand’s growth plans forward. One of its priorities is to further strengthen its retail footprint.
“We also intend to go stronger on our omnichannel approach by simultaneously growing our distribution channels in India and beyond, along with creating an even stronger base on our D2C platforms.”
SUGAR made its offline debut in 2017, two years after it launched online. Since then, the company has expanded its retail footprint and now has over 35,000 retail touchpoints in over 500 cities.
Despite the challenges that came with the COVID-19 pandemic, the beauty brand forged ahead with its retail expansion plans, launching over 60 stores in March 2020 alone. Recently in May, the company celebrated its 100th brand-owned store.
Tapping on hybrid trend
In addition, the brand is working to reinforce its product portfolio. At the moment, it is working to capitalise on the trend for more multifunctional, ‘hybrid’ products.
“In recent days, hybrid beauty products have gained momentum as consumers become more conscious of the ingredients in their make-up and demand more from each product. Additionally, the rise of minimalism beauty trends has accelerated this growth.”
The company has launched new products to cater to this trend, including a primer with skin-plumping ingredients and a skin illuminating sunscreen.
“The beauty industry is ever-evolving and digitisation in the past years has accelerated its growth and ever-evolving trends. SUGAR Cosmetics has always kept the consumer at the core of every decision we make, and our products are developed to cater to their needs,” said Singh.
“We look forward to expanding in this hybrid range based on consumer feedback. Keeping our audience in mind, we are also looking forward to tapping into different categories of the beauty industry.”
Finally, the brand also intends to strengthen its bond with its consumer base and continue building a community.
“We will be focusing on creating solid content to keep educating and engaging our SUGAR community across all platforms – digital and otherwise. We will also be strategically collaborating with like-minded personalities, IPs, and events,” said Singh.
