New Delhi, July 23 -- Once a poster child of India's direct-to-consumer (D2C) boom, online beauty and wellness platform The Good Glamm Group is now facing a dramatic collapse. Despite achieving unicorn status, expanding rapidly into small towns and online channels, acquiring trendy startups, and attracting top-tier investors, the group is being dismantled as lenders step in to recover dues. At one point, the company had even set its sights on a public listing.
After months of struggling with profitability issues, payment disputes, and operational challenges, Good Glamm will sell off all its brands individually, marking the failure of its restructuring efforts.
In a four-page emotional LinkedIn post, Darpan S, co-founder of Sanghvi Beauty and Technologies Pvt Ltd, which operates the MyGlamm brand, said that despite exploring multiple options, including refinancing, partial brand sales, and strategic investments, lenders have now decided to enforce their charge on individual brands.
"Our lenders have decided to enforce their charge on the individual brands under the Good Glamm Group. What this means is that there will no longer be a group-wide solution which will allow all the brands to continue under a single umbrella. Instead, the brands will be sold one by one, and will operate individually instead of being under one umbrella and there will be new individual owners for each of the different brands," he said.
Notably, Darpan also committed to contributing 25% of his post-tax earnings toward settling employee dues if brand sales fall through. Further, he pledged to create a Good Glamm Restitution Fund within the next 60 days to help resolve outstanding dues to stakeholders.
The group has already made three distress sales this year, including selling online media firm ScoopWhoop, feminine hygiene brand Sirona (which went back to founders Deep and Mohit Bajaj), and content platform MissMalini Entertainment-each at a fraction of their original acquisition value.
Brands still under the group include Wehive Technologies, Amishi Consumer Technologies, Luxeva India, Organic Harvests, Syscom Organic World Pvt Ltd, and Infomoko Technology Pvt Ltd. However, these too may fetch little value, an analyst said.
In recent months, investor confidence in the company seems to have dwindled, with board members from Accel India, Bessemer Venture Partners, and Prosus Ventures stepping down.
Notably, the firm received its first investment of around Rs 10 crore ($1.1 million) from French retailer L'occitane International in its founding year.
Since then, a number of high-profile investors, including Alteria Capital, Amazon India, Ascent Capital, Chiratae Ventures, DSG Consumer Partners, Dharma Productions, Samaa Capital, Stride Ventures, Times Internet, Trifecta Capital, and Wipro Consumer Care Ventures joined the cap table..
Good Glamm became a unicorn in 2021 after investments from Warburg Pincus and Prosus. Its last reported funding round was in March 2024, when it raised $30 million (Rs 259 crore) from Warburg Pincus, Prosus, Bessemer India, and Accel Partners. Post-transaction, Warburg held an 8.17% stake and Prosus 7.60%.
In FY23, Sanghvi Beauty and Technologies saw net sales rise to Rs 242.2 crore from Rs 144.1 crore the previous year. However, losses nearly doubled to Rs 531.7 crore.
Darpan signed off his note saying he plans to share in the coming weeks "what went wrong", hoping to help other entrepreneurs navigating similar paths.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from VC Circle.