SUGAR Cosmetics | Success story of the makeup obsession of India

SUGAR cosmetics is a well-known brand in India. This success story is not about a brand but two individuals making their way to the top. Today SUGAR cosmetics has more than 700 offline stores around India. They have even started to introduce the brand internationally. Veenita Singh and Kaushik Mukherjee didn’t build the company in a day. They had their share of struggles, and after breaking those barriers, they stand tall with success.

Early History

In 2012, Vineeta Singh thought starting ‘Fab Bag’ was apt. It was a subscription business that offered women an assortment of beauty products. During this, she gleaned the data of the foreign or local brands. She found that several companies didn’t cater to Indian skin tone or the Indian way of life. Armed with these insights, she started SUGAR in 2015 with her husband. It wasn’t a straight road to walk for Vineeta and her team. When they tried raising the capital, people told them that digital-first beauty would be a small market.

And that it would be impossible to compete with larger companies without raising hundreds of millions of dollars. They were even told that the product wouldn’t be a strong moat since it is a commodity. So many rejections, but they didn’t give up. They kept fighting back against the negative criticism and failure. And finally, in 2017, India Quotient, an early backer, and Singapore-based RB Investments extended a helping hand in a disclosed Series A Financing. They got their first investors; they worked hard and earned it.

Expansion

Today SUGAR is one of the most remarkable brands in India. In the seven years of the life of this brand, it has had several offline and online stores. The revenue collected by the company is divided into three parts – 45% from online stores, 45% from offline stores, and 10% from the international market. While the other brands struggle to get good rankings on the lists, SUGAR has established itself as a 100-crore company.

SUGAR entered the market when make-up artists like James Charles, Jeffree Star, and Kandee Johnson promoted color cosmetics. Because of this coincidence, SUGAR got a safe platform that helped launch. Critics even speculated that by 2025 SUGAR Cosmetics might hold $20 billion worth. They got an edge in the market by creating a buzz among the millennials and urban Indian women. And it was evident from the Rs.105 Crore net revenue of SUGAR Cosmetics in the Financial Year 2019-20.

Funding And Investment

Sugar has raised $ 85.5 million in four rounds of funding. The breakdown is given below.

Success

If the two IIM Ahmedabad graduates, Vineeta Singh and Kaushik Mukherjee, had chosen the corporate office. There would be no SUGAR Cosmetics in existence. Also, in that case, the market still would have been dominated by brands like Lakme, L’Oreal, MAC, etc. This bold step taken by the two IIM-A alumni brought SUGAR Cosmetics into the market. Their creative idea of collaborating with the social media influencers gave incredible brand growth.

The out-of-the-box approaches have always been the main reason behind the success of SUGAR Cosmetics. It can also be seen when big and small businesses faced trouble during the pandemic. The SUGAR Cosmetics was already trained, and the strong team put some extra effort into using eCommerce platforms. The cost-cutting on the social media expenses to manage the prices, products, and availability for the customers have played an essential role in the success of SUGAR Cosmetics even during the pandemic.

Recent Update:

Recently, Sugar Cosmetics opened its 100th brand-owned store in Chennai. CEO Vineeta Singh revealed that their future projects would mainly focus on the South Indian market. She plans to launch at least 150 exclusive brand outlets in the country by the end of 2022. The expansion will mainly focus on the South Indian market due to its tremendous growth in the last few years. Currently, Sugar Cosmetics stores are located in over 550 cities in the country, with more than 35,000 multi-brand outlets.

In 2022, Sugar Cosmetics turned seven. On occasion, Sugar Cosmetics’ founder Vineeta Singh expressed gratitude for the immense love and supported the brand gained from its customers. Sugar Cosmetics aims to open 100,000 stores by the end of financial year 2022. Presently, the company is doing well in the market. It is one of the most successful cosmetic brands of India. The brand’s Instagram profile has more than two million followers and engages with billions of people. Moreover, Sugar Cosmetics’ application has been playing a prominent role in upscaling the sales. The app has more than four million downloads. Through the app, customers can get their products delivered across 20,000 different places in India.

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