Women's Day 2026: Most people think that big changes and 'breakthrough ideas' are only for the youth. It is believed that taking risks and shaking the world is just a game of passion for 25-30 year olds, but sometimes some stories completely change this thinking. One such story is that of Nykaa founder Falguni Nair. When most people move towards the last stage of their career at the age of 50, Falguni Nair started from scratch. She took a step which changed the beauty market of India. Today Nykaa is not just a company but has become a big brand with a value of more than ₹ 1 lakh crore.
Falguni Nair was born in Mumbai. She comes from a Gujarati business family. Talks like business, profit and market were discussed in his house since childhood. His father ran a small bearing company. Seeing him working, Falguni understood business at a very young age. He studied commerce from Sydenham College of Commerce and Economics, Mumbai. After this he did MBA from IIM Ahmedabad, one of the top management institutes in the country.
After MBA, Falguni Nair started her career in the finance sector. She joined Kotak Mahindra Group and worked there for nearly two decades. Due to her experience and work, she gradually progressed in the company. Eventually she became the Managing Director (MD) of Kotak Mahindra Capital. During this period, he advised many big companies of India regarding IPO and business growth. His career was considered very successful. But during this time a question started arising in his mind that what next?
At a time when most people are stable in their career, Falguni Nair took a big risk. In the year 2012, he started FSN E-Commerce Ventures Private Ltd. This company later became Nykaa. At that time India's beauty market was fragmented. Most of the sales were in offline stores and online beauty shopping was almost non-existent. Falguni Nair recognized this opportunity and decided to build a digital-first beauty platform.
Nykaa was not started just to sell products. Falguni Nair adopted a different strategy in this. He stressed on giving correct information to the customers. The company started creating tutorials, reviews and beauty content to help customers make informed decisions. Gradually people's trust started increasing and the identity of the heroine became stronger.
In 2014, Nykaa opened its first physical store. At that time very few people had any idea that an online company could grow so fast even offline. After this the company launched its own beauty brand Nykaa Cosmetics. With this, Nykaa became not just a marketplace but a brand itself. During this time, Nykaa Femina Beauty Awards were also started, which gave the company a strong identity in the beauty industry.
Nykaa grew slowly but in a very strategic manner. In the year 2018, actress Janhvi Kapoor became the first brand ambassador of the company, which further increased the popularity of Nykaa. After this, Nykaa became a unicorn in 2020, that is, the value of the company increased to more than 1 billion dollars. At the same time, the company launched Nykd by Nykaa, which focuses on women's innerwear and lifestyle products.
Nykaa's IPO came in the year 2021 and it got a tremendous response from investors. The company got listed on the stock exchange and Falguni Nair became one of the richest self-made female billionaires of India. This achievement was also special because the startup world is often considered to be dominated by young founders. Today the company has more than 2.4 crore customers and is continuously growing. By 2022, the company had opened more than 100 retail stores. In 2023, the company launched an Ayurvedic brand named Nyveda. By FY23, the company had more than 2.4 crore customers. Today Nykaa has become one of the largest companies in India's beauty and lifestyle sector.
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