Two IIT grads hit a Purplle patch with beauty ecommerce, bag series A funding

Yesterday, we wrote about how niche ecommerce companies like Lenskart, furniture etailer Urban Ladder, and jewelry estore Bluestone have been coming up fast in India, as people get more comfortable buying a variety of products online. Now, another niche player, Purplle has raised an undisclosed amount in series A funding from IvyCap Ventures. This ecommerce site focuses on the beauty and grooming vertical.

Purplle was founded by Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) grads Manish Taneja and Rahul Dash.

Taneja grew up in Faridabad, near Delhi, and went to IIT Delhi for Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees, while Dash grew up in Bhubaneswar in the state of Orissa and went to IIT Kharagpur and then to Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Ahmedabad. The two were flatmates when Taneja was working with private equity firm Fidelity, which involved evaluating and investing in consumer tech businesses, while Dash was toying with an online furniture marketplace idea. “We used to discuss these business models all the time and that’s how Purplle germinated. We worked on it for six months before quitting and starting up,” Manish Taneja tells Tech in Asia.

The duo launched Purplle from Mumbai in 2011, and soon bagged seed funding from Blume Ventures, Mumbai Angels, and Chennai Angels. Now, with fresh funds, they’re poised to scale up rapidly this year.

Besides buying products on Purplle, users can also compare products based on several parameters, including ratings, colors, and prices. Also, you can compare salons and spas in your neighborhood based on reviews, pictures, and distance from your location. Purplle’s first mobile app will be out in a few weeks. It will have a different app for salons. That will be released next month, Taneja tells us.

More and more Indian shoppers are now loosening purse strings online. And as ecommerce is gaining momentum, great design, photos, and curation are turning out to be key influencers in the buying decision. Purplle wants to get that right.

Taneja says his team made a lot of mistakes initially with images and content on the site but learned from them. “Now, we are very focused on simple design. Pictures make a big difference. Our design team checks every image before it goes live on the platform,” he says.

He is building a “full-fledged content management system” to avoid design mistakes in future.

Solution-oriented and hyperlocal

Purplle already has a few strong competitors. Beauty ecommerce portal Nykaa, founded by an investment banker-turned-entrepreneur Falguni Nayar, Mumbai-based BeautyKafe, and Birchbox-style FabBag are a few. Apart from these vertical-focused companies, broader ecommerce marketplaces like Flipkart, Amazon, and Snapdeal too offer a wide range of beauty and grooming products.

With such fierce competition, it is hard to stand out, but Taneja believes Purplle’s focus gives it an edge over others. “Having a wide range of products is not a solution to all needs of customers. It only serves the customers who are well-informed and know what they want to buy. For others, there is a lot of value in discovery and curation. We think we will do this better because of our razor sharp focus on this category,” he says.