It was hinted at two months ago when it was revealed that online beauty marketplace Nykaa was in talks to acquire local discovery and e-commerce platform Little Black Book (LBB), and now the beauty retailer has finally sealed the deal.
The company announced that it has received the green signal from its board to acquire the e-commerce platform as it looks to improve its offerings and penetrate deeper into the Discovery e-commerce segment. The deal is expected to close within 60 days.
This is Nykaa’s latest investment under Falguni Nayar after closing earlier this year. At the time, its investment portfolio included names such as clean beauty player Earth Rhythm (18.51% stake), nutraceuticals and wellness product Nudge Wellness (60% stake) and sportswear brand Kica Active (100% shares). it increased competition against rivals like Purplle.
The acquisition appears to benefit both companies simultaneously – LBB can leverage Nykaa’s expertise to expand the customer journey, while LBB focuses on fashion, home and beauty categories in line with Nykaa’s own strengths. According to ten-year-old Nykaa, the acquisition was in line with its “fundamental, content-driven approach to engaging with a loyal consumer base.”
The brainchild of millennials Suchita Salwan and Dhruv Mathur, LBB began as a Tumblr blog where Salwan documented interesting places she discovered in Delhi. After that, it developed into a thriving online platform that quickly spread across cities and attracted the attention of investors such as Blume Ventures. Today, LBB reaches over 70 million users through various channels and has tie-ups with several local and international brands.
Nykaa credits LBB with its “demanding user base, ability to create content, curation mentality and relationships with emerging brands” to help carve out its own niche.
“We are excited about the strong synergy we share with LBB because, like Nykaa, they have focused from day one on discovering and highlighting promising homegrown brands across their channels. We welcome their like-minded leaders to the Nykaa family and look forward to helping them scale as together we better serve our audience,” said Nigir Parikh, Nykaa spokesperson.
The event came on the same day as Nykaa’s June quarter earnings report, and was quite impressive for a time when companies were struggling to stay afloat and healthy. The beauty retailer grew 33% year-on-year to Rs 4.55 crore, while its revenue grew 41% YoY to Rs 1,148 crore during the period.
