RPSG Ventures invests $4 mn in IncNut Digital

Media and ecommerce startup IncNut Digital has scored $4 million in a Series A round of funding from RPSG Ventures, the early-stage venture capital fund backed by RP Sanjiv Goenka Group. 

The Hyderabad headquartered firm will use the fresh capital to strengthen its personalised beauty care brands SkinKraft and Vedix, according to a statement. IncNut also operates the online beauty and wellness community StyleCraze and parenting network MomJunction. 

Prior to this, the firm had raised Rs 50 lakh in a seed round from Ventureast Fund in 2013. The stake was later bought out by Tokyo-headquartered consumer internet company istyle Inc for Rs 25 crore in 2018. 

“Our vision at SkinKraft and Vedix is to revolutionize beauty with customized ecommerce. Since the last few years, we have seen an increased interest in customised skincare using AI and ML,” Chaitanya Nallan, CEO of IncNut Digital said in a statement. 

Founded in 2011 by Sangram Simha, Nallan and Veerendra Shivhare, IncNut Digital reported a profit after tax of Rs 1.48 crore for the financial year ending March 2018, according to data sourced from VCCEdge. The company also registered Rs 45.8 crore in total income for the year. 

Nallan told TechCirlce that the company is working towards a just in time approach for manufacturing the products, which are shipped with the help of third-party logistics players. 

“We sell skincare regimen as part of the brands and our consumers transact with us on an average of three to four times a year, with an average ticket size of Rs 1000,” Nallan told TechCircle. 

He further added that personalised brands can only be digital-first as the process of personalisation by asking relevant questions to the users is difficult to execute at an offline touchpoint. “We ask 30 questions to the consumer before we come up with a product for them and this can only be done online,” he added.

RPSG Ventures has backed personal care brand mCaffeine, apparel brand The Souled Store and group-buying site ShopG. 

“We, at RPSG Ventures, see an incredible potential in the data-driven skincare industry. We are delighted to support the company in developing the technology as they start to scale the business,” Abhishek Goenka, head of RPSG Ventures said.

Personalised beauty care products and business to consumer personal care brands category have seen an increase in investments over the last few years. In October 2019, personalised haircare brand Bare Anatomy raised $500,000 from Sauce venture capital. Recently, FMCG ( fast-moving consumer goods) company Marico completed its acquisition of men’s grooming brand Beardo.