IncNut Digital Pvt. Ltd, which operates a beauty care products-focussed media and e-commerce platform, has raised $4 million (Rs 30.15 crore at current exchange rates) in Series A funding.
The Hyderabad-based company raised this capital from RPSG Ventures, the early-stage consumer-focussed venture capital fund of the RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group.
RPSG Ventures mainly invests in the business-to-consumer companies in segments such as food and beverages, personal care and lifestyle. It usually invests in a company’s Series A and Series B rounds. Some of its portfolio companies include mCaffeine and ShopG.
IncNut was set up by Chaitanya Nallan, Sangram Simha and Veerendra Shivhare in 2011. It operates the portals StyleCraze, MomJunction and TheBridalBox. It also owns personalised beauty care brands SkinKraft and Vedix.
The company will use the funding to strengthen its research and development laboratories, as well as enhance its technological infrastructure and artificial intelligence-driven data processes.
“With RPSG Ventures’ operational experience and expertise in the consumer domain, we will be able to strengthen our positioning and expand more rapidly across India,” Nallan said.
RPSG Ventures head Abhishek Goenka said the firm was confident of its investment because of the strength of IncNut’s properties as well as the larger potential in the “data-driven skincare industry”.
Previous investors in IncNut included early-stage investment firm Ventureast, which in October 2018 sold its stake to the Tokyo-based consumer internet company istyle Inc. The Japanese firm picked up a minority stake in IncNut for Rs 25 crore. This gave Ventureast around 50 times returns on its investment in the startup.
