Beauty startup Nykaa’s founder Falguni Nayar has become India’s wealthiest self-made female billionaire after shares of the firm surged as much as 89 percent as trading began on Wednesday. Nayar who owns about half of Nykaa is now worth 6.5 billion dollars.
FSN E-Commerce Ventures’s Nykaa is the first woman-led venture to hit the stock exchange.
Nayar, an ex-investment banker started Nykaa in 2012, a few months before she turned 50, during a time when makeup was brought from local stores and limited to a few products.
The startup escalated and became the country’s leading beauty retailer with prominent Bollywood actors promoting the brand. Nykaa has over 70 stores across the country.
“We have a long way to go,” Nayar told Bloomberg ahead of the initial public offering on Wednesday.
While Falguni is the richest self-made female billionaire, Savitri Jindal who owns the OP Jindal group, is the nation’s wealthiest woman with a fortune valued at 12.9 billion dollars, according to Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a ranking of the world’s 500 richest people.