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When it comes to the cosmetic industry, consumers are always concerned about the process that is followed while manufacturing the products. This is why the world is seeing a new era of cosmetic products that are organic, produced in a natural way, and with the help of natural products that are free of toxins and other chemicals.
The craze about these organic products is palpable simply because they mean no harm to our skin, hair, gut, and ourselves in general. Leveraging this drive of organic products, Mamaearth has catapulted itself as a promising startup in the cosmetics industry that comes with the American Made safe Certification, the first nontoxic seal for the products in use today.
Mamaearth was founded in September 2016 by Ghazal Alagh and Varun Alagh, to make skincare routines a little chic but with utmost care. Headquartered in Gurugram (India), Mamaearth is distinguished in the cosmetics industry of India as an online platform that offers natural and toxin-free skin care products.
Here's diving into the Success Story of Mamaearth where we will also discover about the Founders and Team of the company, its Startup Story, Target Market Size, Product/Services, Mission and Vision, Name and Logo, Business and Revenue Model, Funding and Investors, Acquisitions, Growth, Partnerships, Challenges, Competitors, Awards and more.
Mamaearth - Company Highlights
| Startup Name | Mamaearth |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Gurugram, India |
| Sector | Personal Products |
| Founders | Ghazal Alagh and Varun Alagh |
| Founded | 2016 |
| Parent Organization | Honasa Consumer Pvt. Ltd. |
| Total funding | $73.3 mn (July 2021) |
| Valuation | $1 bn+ (December 2021) |
| Revenue | $66.02 mn (FY21E) |
| Website | mamaearth.in |
| Contact | care@mamaearth.in |
Mamaearth - Latest News
December 28, 2021 - Mamaearth turns unicorn after a recent round led by Sequoia where the company raised $80 mn.
December 24, 2021 - Mamaearth parent Honasa Consumer acquires Mompresso, a content platform that is focused on women, especially moms, and its associated influencer engagement platform, Momspresso MyMoney, for an undisclosed amount.
Mamaearth - About and How it Works
Mamaearth - Founders/Owners and Team
Mamaearth - Startup Story | How was Mamaearth Started?
Mamaearth - Target Market Size
Mamaearth - Product/Services
Mamaearth - Startup Launch
Mamaearth - Mission and Vision
Mamaearth - Name and Logo
Mamaearth - Business and Revenue Model
Mamaearth - Funding and Investors
Mamaearth - Acquisitions
Mamaearth - Growth
Mamaearth - Partnerships
Mamaearth - Startup Challenges
Mamaearth - Competitors
Mamaearth - Awards
Mamaearth - Future Plans
Mamaearth - FAQs
Ashwini
Mamaearth - About and How it Works
Through an innovative product line, Mamaearth has tried to solve a common Indian parenting problem. In a country where most of the baby products available do not meet safety regulations, Mamaearth offers products that are safe by international standards and loaded with the goodness of nature.
Mamaearth is often hailed as the 1st Asian brand with a “MADE SAFE” certification. The products that the company brings to the masses are free of all known toxins that are banned in most countries. More than being just a commercial brand, Mamaearth takes pride in making products out of love and care. In case you are wondering about the country/origin of Mamaearth, then the company is based out of India with its headquarters in Gurugram, (Gurgaon) India.
Mamaearth - Founders/Owners and Team
Mamaearth Co-founders, Ghazal Alagh and Varun Alagh incorporated Honasa Consumer Private Limited in 2016 and then went on to launch the Mamaearth range of toxin-free products in December that year. The couple had made it their mission to make safe, chemical-free products available to all babies in India. The company has now grown to be an organic product manufacturer for babies, moms, dads, grandparents, and everyone else.
Varun Alagh
Mamaearth Co-Founder, Get Stuff Done Officer, and the Chief Dad of Mamaearth, Varun Alagh is from the FMCG industry. Varun Alagh has a BE in Electrical Engineering from Delhi College of Engineering, followed by an MBA in Finance and Marketing from XLRI Jamshedpur. Varun has previously worked in Hindustan Unilever, Smirnoff, and The Coca-Cola Company where he had managed key leadership roles before founding Honasa Consumer Pvt. Ltd., the parent company of Mamaearth. He is known for the brand management expertise he brings to the table.
Ghazal Alagh
Ghazal Alagh is another Co-founder of Mamaearth, who is also known as the Chief Innovation Office. Ghazal has completed her BCA in Information Technology student from Panjab University. She then served as a Corporate Trainer at NIIT and later on founded Dietexpert in February 2012 before founding Mamaearth under Honasa in 2016. Ghazal has also completed Intensive courses in Modern Art and Applied Arts from the School of Visual Arts and New York Academy of Art and is recognized as one of the top 10 women artists in India and both nationally and internationally.
“We are a 'mum-powered' company and work with a large number of mothers who are involved in the process, right from ideation, conceptualization to the actual product launch. We believe this connection with mothers will continue to be the biggest driver of success. We have more than 200 young moms on board who help us in conceptualizing and formulating the products. The moms then test these products, and only those with great feedback are approved for mass production,” says Ghazal Alagh.
The workplace culture is open, ambitious, experiment-oriented, and not rigid in terms of hierarchy. All of these make Mamaearth a fun place to work at.
Mamaearth - Startup Story | How was Mamaearth Started?
In the US, there is strong awareness about the harmful chemicals found in the most commonly used personal care and baby care products. During Ghazal’s stay there, she became more conscious of the kind of products she was using and started checking the ingredients list before buying any baby care item.
When Varun and Ghazal were expecting their first child (the couple was in India at the time), they realized that the baby care products they came across contained harmful toxins and safer alternatives weren't available. Since the husband-wife duo couldn’t find any safe products for babies in India, they stopped using Indian products and imported reliable products manufactured in other countries. They eventually started ordering products from the US but that turned out to be a costly and inconvenient arrangement. Besides, they also realized that it wasn’t just them and in fact, there are one too many parents in India who struggled with the same concern. However, finding no solutions at hand, Varun and Ghazal Alagh researched the ways they can turn baby products safer and affordable They spent sleepless nights over the founding of a new brand, created a dedicated R&D team for it, applied for appropriate certifications. All of these ultimately gave rise to Mamaearth, and it soon became Asia's 1st brand to offer "MADE SAFE" certified products that were toxin-free and loaded with the natural goodness that babies deserve.
“We are on a mission to reduce parental stress & are continually improving and innovating to make the world a safer place for both babies and their parents,” adds Ghazal Alagh.
Rishabh Rathi
Mamaearth - Target Market Size
According to the estimates by the market research company Technavio, the baby care market in India is expected to grow at 17% CAGR in revenue in the next three years. In terms of the products available, Mamaearth has segmented their products as follows:
- Baby
- Beauty
- Hair
- Face
- Body
- Gift packs.
Mamaearth - Product/Services
Mamaearth is focused on babies and others with an exclusive product range that caters to baby care, haircare, skincare, and more with over 80 natural products under its umbrella. Some of the most innovative products developed by Mamaearth include India’s first bamboo-based baby wipes, easy tummy roll-on with hing and fennel for colic and digestion relief, and 100% natural plant-based toothpaste for children between 0-10 years. It also has a range of skin and hair care products around popular natural ingredients such as onion, ubtan, tea tree, vitamin C, argan, coco, and charcoal.
It has expanded not only to cater to babies but their mothers as well with varied products ranging from sunscreen to stretch mark removal serum. It focuses on all aspects of motherhood. A fan favorite is their onion range of products for mothers.
Mamaearth - Startup Launch
The Mamaearth team believes in mum-power and decided to directly target mothers. The founders were confident that once the customers used Mamaearth products, the word-of-mouth publicity would work wonders for the company. The team also leveraged the power of social media through influencer marketing.
The primary strategy was to resonate with like-minded parents who wanted nothing but the best for their babies. The customer acquisition strategy is purely focused on digital content.
“We want consumers to read about the problems that our products solve and why our products are the best in the market. We work with over 500 mom bloggers. We are also innovating constantly to stay relevant and cater to the dynamic market needs,” said Ghazal Alagh.
The most significant project, which helped Mamaearth achieve the current growth rate was the lean innovation cycle; it was geared to launch, learn, and scale quickly. Lean innovation helped them focus on customer-specific needs identification. Apart from this, rapid experimentation allowed the validation and improvement of many product concepts on a real-time basis. It aided in increased customer satisfaction and reduced the time-to-market.
Mamaearth - Mission and Vision
We aim to build a brand which is your friend, every parent’s friend. A friend who understands you, knows your issues and tries hard to resolve them, well most of them. A brand which every parent like you and me can trust, which intends to make lives of mums & expectant mums better and beautiful. A brand which welcomes all our babies to a healthy and a safe world. We aspire to take care of every parents & baby’s wellbeing from head to toe with safe, toxin free, international standard products which you can choose without having to think twice. Well it’s a lot like love, Awwww, as mentioned on the "Our Mission" section of the Mamaearth website.
The brand aims to solve the recurring problems of young parents with safe, toxin free, and international standard products, which will help them cherish the joy of parenting without any hassles.
Rishabh Rathi
Mamaearth - Name and Logo
Mamaearth is an online retailer that specializes in organic products that are best for babies, their mothers, grandparents, and others.
Mamaearth - Business and Revenue Model
Mamaearth formulates products that are then produced by contract manufacturers under a license from the Mamaearth brand. Mamaearth is a trademark owned by Honasa Consumer Pvt. Ltd.
Mamaearth is a digital-first FMCG company whose revenue model is based on the offers that are posted on the D2C platforms (Amazon, Flipkart, etc.) and their eventual sales along with the sale of products displayed at traditional offline stores. The team at Mamaearth follows the blue system with an omnichannel presence, according to which innovative products steer growth.
Mamaearth - Funding and Investors
Mamaearth raised a total of $153.3 million in funding over 7 rounds. The latest funding of $80 mn that the company raised, came in on December 28, 2021, which was led by Sequoia Capital. This funding round helped the company achieve a unicorn valuation. Prior to this, the company raised $50 million on July 26, 2021, from a Series C equity round led by Sofina Ventures.
| Date | Stage | Amount | Investor |
|---|---|---|---|
| December 28, 2021 | Series D | $80 Million | Sequoia Capital India |
| July 26, 2021 | Series C | $50 Million | Sofina Ventures |
| January 2020 | Series B | $17 Million | Sequoia Capital India |
| September 2018 | Series A | $4 Million | Fireside Ventures, Stellaris Venture Partners |
| April 2018 | Venture | $250K | Shilpa Shetty |
| September 2017 | Venture | $1 Million | Fireside Ventures |
| December 2016 | Seed | $125K | Fireside Ventures |
In 2016, Mamaearth raised a pre-seed round of $125,000 from a consortium of investors. In 2018, it raised $4 million in Series A funding led by Stellaris Ventures, Fireside Ventures, Marico's Rishabh Mariwala who manages Sharp Ventures, and Snapdeal founders Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal.
In April 2018, Shilpa Shetty Kundra also came on board as an equity investor. In January 2020, Mamaearth raised around Rs 140 crores in a funding round led by Sequoia India with participation from existing investors – Fireside Ventures, Stellaris Venture Partners, and Sharp ventures.
Mamaearth - Acquisitions
Mamearth has acquired 2 companies to date - Mompresso and Mompresso MyMoney, both of which were acquired by the D2C brand on December 24, 2021.
| Acquiree Name | Acquired Date | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Mompresso | December 24, 2021 | - |
| Mompresso MyMoney | December 24, 2021 | - |
Mamaearth - Growth
When Mamaearth was launched in 2016, it had only six products in its catalog. The product range now comprises more than 80 natural and toxin-free products that are used by over 1.5 million Indian consumers. Besides, Mamaeath is now available in more than 500 cities.
Mamaearth witnessed a growth in its operating revenue, which jumped to Rs 110 crores in FY20, which stood at Rs 16.8 crores at the end of FY19. The company has also restricted its losses to Rs 5.9 crores, which is pretty impressive. According to a report published by the investment bank, Jefferies, the company may cross Rs 500 crore mark in FY21.
Vidhi Punamiya
Mamaearth - Partnerships
Mamaearth partnered with Anita Hassanandani on February 26, 2021. Tv veteran Anita had delivered a baby boy and this is what makes the company's strategic partnership with the new celebrity mother so relevant. With this collaboration, Mamaearth will be expecting a growth in the hair care, skincare, and baby care categories.
Mamaearth rolled out its national television commercial on March 2021, which is a 30 seconds film followed by a shorter 15-seconds edit where Shilpa Shetty Kundra partnered with the brand to advocate for the Vitamin C facewash that Mamaearth brings in for its customers. This film was solely dedicated to promoting the tagline "Goodness inside."
The organic customer products brand partnered with Ribbon, the film that starred Kalki Koechlin and Sumeet Vyas in 2017, prior to its release on 3rd November. It became the 'Official Mama’s Partner’ for the movie.
Mamaearth - Startup Challenges
Every organization faces problems in its early years and Mamaearth was no different. Early in its launch, Mamaearth was hit with a growth hurdle wherein it was not able to expand as desired. The team realized the problem had to do with not being sharp about the target cohort, which lead to futile marketing expenditure coupled with minimal customer acquisition.
The core team did an internal rethinking and arrived at the decision to redefine the target group as well as the communication strategy around the target group. Once the team implemented the strategy, it could see significant gains in a short period.
The cosmetics industry is packed up with several dominant companies consisting of both foreign and Indian players that keep up a constant competition in the space.
Mamaearth - Competitors
Mamaearth faces immense competition directly and indirectly from MNCs such as Himalaya and Johnson & Johnson as well as e-commerce portals like Nykaa. There are several companies, including both corporates and startups that boasts of several products from the categories like baby apparel, baby toys, and baby accessories, which compete directly with Mamaearth. On the other hand, the cosmetics industry is dominated by organized players like Johnson & Johnson, Kimberly Clark, Procter & Gamble, and Unilever, which also act as rivals to Mamaearth. Besides, more and more companies are popping up with the toxin-free ideology nowadays and increasing the overall competition of Mamaearth.
Chayanika Goswami
Mamaearth - Awards
Mamaearth was recognized as “One of the Best Brands” in India at the 2nd edition of The ET Brand Festival in 2019.
Mamaearth - Future Plans
“Our plan is to build Mamaearth into an Rs. 500 crore brand by acquiring five million new consumers in the next three years. We are also looking at launching more brands under the Honasa umbrella, which would be focused on the needs of the new-age, millennial consumers,” Ghazal Alagh adds.
Furthermore, the company also aims to cement its brand awareness in the upcoming years with the help of influencer marketing and targeted digital funnels.
Mamaearth - FAQs
Is Mamaearth an Indian Brand?
The Mamaearth company is an Indian brand and is based out of Gurugram, Haryana. It was founded by Varun and Ghazal Alagh in 2016 to provide toxin-free, natural baby care, skincare, haircare products, and more for babies and everyone else.
Are Mamaearth products good?
Mamaearth proclaims itself as Asia’s first brand to be certified 100% non-toxic by "MADE SAFE". The ingredients used to manufacture Mamaearth's products are completely natural. Thus, they are safe to use.
Is Mamaearth Ayurvedic?
Mamaearth is an innovative brand that uses Ayurveda and science to develop natural, toxin-free products.
Who is the owner of Mamaearth?
Mamaearth owners are Varun Alagh and Ghazal Alagh who are the founders as well.
Is Mamaearth organic?
The products delivered by Mamaearth are 100% natural and manufactured using organic and safe ingredients. Mamaearth takes pride in promoting a non-toxic and chemical-free product catalog.
Is Mamaearth vegan?
Mamaearth is certified "cruelty-free" by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). It does not promote or conduct animal testing.
Is Mamaearth Shampoo sulfate-free?
Mamaearth relies on natural ingredients. The shampoo is sulphate-free and does not harm the user.
Is Mamaearth available in stores?
Mamaearth products can be found in stores. One can also purchase them online at discounted rates.
How do you buy Mamaearth products?
Mamaearth products are sold online at Nykaa, Amazon, and such as well as in brick-and-mortar medical stores.
Author: Anik Banerjee
Source : https://startuptalky.com/mamaearth-success-story/
Date : 2021-12-28T08:27:00.000Z