On-demand home beauty services brand Belita bags Rs 2.5 crore from India Quotient, others Belita aspires to make regular and premium beauty experience affordable and convenient to every woman.
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
You're reading Entrepreneur India, an international franchise of Entrepreneur Media.
With an increase in the women working population and the increasing segment of women switching from home based beauty remedies to professional care, the perception of beauty is changing. It is no more a luxury but a necessity.
With continuously rising consumer expectations on hygiene and professionalism, and growing spending power/disposable income; the beauty service market size is set to witness a high growth trajectory. Currently, the beauty industry in India is close to Rs 500 billion in size, with services alone contributing Rs 200 billion, and the same is growing at a rate of 18 per cent CAGR.
This exponential growth is due to the emerging on-demand beauty and wellness start-ups. These start-ups are not only luring people, but also seeking the attention of VCs (Venture Capitals) and Angel Investors. After VanityCube and Vyomo, Mumbai-based Belita has announced to secure about Rs 2.5 crore in an angel round of funding led by India Quotient and Supreet Singh, CEO, Altor Executive Search, with few other participating investors from LetsVenture and Lead Angels.
The venture plans to utilise this funding mainly in strengthening the operations, building team, enhancing technology and expansion to different cities. Commenting on the investment, Supreet Singh, CEO, Altor Executive Search, said, "The Belita team has got complete control on their model. With passion and experience of the founders, we believe Belita is set to continue with leadership position within this industry."
Founded by Garima Jain and serial entrepreneur Akshay Jain in September 2011, Belita aspires to make regular beauty services, with premium experience, affordable and convenient to every woman.
Born with the vision of women empowerment in mind, the start-up aims at making high quality, value for money and personal hygiene, beauty & wellness services to every woman at her convenience.
Currently having 50 beauticians onboard, Belita's tech platform aggregates beauticians and provide them with top-notch training and products, thereby, empowering them to serve customers better and earn a large take-home for themselves with dignity.
"Everybody looks for a bargain when buying a Kurta, but nobody would want to pay less for a beauty treatment for their face. It is this business model that gives Belita an edge over pure marketplaces and also its high gross margin," said Anand Lunia, Founder, India Quotient.
Being on-demand home beauty services brand, the real challenge in front of Belita was to train and uplift beauticians to deliver a much greater experience in home beauty service. In last 3 years, Belita has provided around 40,000 services to more than 15,000 women in Mumbai.
Belita delivers standard experience to its customer at a great price through its well defined procedures for – onboarding, providing full stack services, training curriculum, use of branded products, strict quality control, and tech-enabled efficient operations.
Currently operating in Mumbai, Belita plans to expand its reach to other cities also. "Having run the cost-effective profitable model of Belita in four locations within Mumbai, we are confident of our model, team, and processes. Belita has the potential and capability to grow into a multi city service. The slow, organic growth would not help fulfill our vision. This angel round would help us grow faster by building a bigger team, better tech, and expanding to new locations and cities," concludes Akshay Jain, Co-founder, Belita.
