Nykaa’s founder Falguni Nayar becomes India’s wealthiest self-made female billionaire
Nykaa’s founder and chief executive, Falguni Nayar, has become India’s wealthiest self-made female billionaire.
According to Bloomberg Billionaires Index, on Wednesday, shares made a strong stock market debut marking Nayar’s grand achievement.
When they started trading on Wednesday, the shares of the firm surged as much as 89%. The businesswoman, who owns about half of Nykaa, is now the owner of about $6.5 billion.
Nykaa’s parent entity, FSN E-Commerce Ventures, is India’s first woman-led unicorn to hit the stock exchange.
Falguni Nayar is a former investment banker and founded Nykaa in 2012. This woman-led unicorn offers more than 4,000 beauty, personal care and fashion brands through its website, app and 80-odd brick-and-mortar stores.
Graduated from IIM Ahmedabad, Falguni started her career in consulting with A.F. Ferguson & Co. After that, she shifted to Kotak Mahindra Bank, where she dedicatedly worked for 18 years, later promoted as Managing Director of Kotak Mahindra Investment Bank and then became a director at Kotak Securities – the bank’s institutional equities division.
After so many years of working for other MNCs, Falguni finally moved on to her own startup. She built the beauty and lifestyle retail empire Nykaa with a team of over 1600 people. Today the company has grown into becoming India’s leading beauty retailer with a portfolio of 1500+ brands, including its own private label. The products on Nykaa are sold both online and across 68 stores in India.
Ms Kalinga
Falguni is an inspiration for every woman out there. She is killing stereotypes in her way. She thinks that the mentality of the business community and society as a whole needs to change. The perception that only men can take risks has to be bid a goodbye. Determination and will power are her weapons to destroy any hurdle. There are still miles to go on this journey, and she believes that she will do it, for sure.