Honestly, an AI-powered beauty and personal care (BPC) review platform, raised Rs 3.2 crore in a pre-seed funding round led by Better Capital.
QED Innovations, led by Kunal Shah, and senior leaders from Flipkart, Polygon, and Cred also participated in the round.
The funds will be used to launch the initial product and achieve early product-market fit.
“We are looking at BPC because the problem is grave here. You can’t return products, and the number of attributes along which you need to know whether the product is working or not, and how a person experiences a product, is very different,” cofounder Vivek Madani said.
Founded in April 2024 by Karishma Rathaur and Madani, the platform will enable peer-to-peer connections for sharing product reviews. The AI will analyze product ingredients to help users understand how new products fit into their routines.
The revenue model will focus on business-to-business (B2B), allowing other brands to use the platform’s APIs and integrate widgets into their product pages.
“Once we prove out the business-to-consumer (B2C) user application and we have enough proprietary data then we will give ecommerce platforms APIs to integrate onto their platforms,” he said.
The firm plans to reach 1 million users in India in the next few years.
“We will either look to go deeper into India or expand globally. For example, the UAE has similar skin tones, and then there is the West Indian diaspora and the UK Indian diaspora,” Madani added.
According to a study by Redseer Strategy Consultants and Peak XV Partners, India’s beauty and personal care market is expected to grow at a compounded annual growth rate of 10% between 2022 and 2027, reaching $30 billion.
“While social media has helped educate people about skincare, haircare and makeup, it has also added to the confusion. We’re thrilled to be backed by investors who understand the problem. This investment will enable us to build a strong engineering and marketing founding team over the next few months,” said Rathaur.
Commenting on the investment, Vaibhav Domkundwar of Better Capital said, “A quick skim on beauty Reddits confirms how broken skin care is today, and especially when more and more consumers are proactively looking to take care of their skin.”
