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Unilever Venture Capital-backed skincare start-up, Pureplay Skin Sciences, is expanding its men’s grooming portfolio, under the “Phy” brand.
Pureplay, set up in 2013, sells skin and hair care products for women under its “Plum” line..
The offerings, which are vegan, are placed in the mid-to-premium range, with average product price being around ₹500.
According to Shankar Prasad, Founder and Director, Pureplay Skin Sciences (India) Pvt Ltd, plans are afoot to launch some 8-10 products over the next eight months under the Phy brand, focussing primarily on categories such as shaving solutions, hair care, and beard grooming. Skincare, he said, will continue to be a dominant category in its portfolio.
“We are ramping up the male grooming product portfolio under Phy with new launches,” he told BusinessLine .
The ₹16,000-crore men-grooming market has primarily been dominated by shaving solutions and deodorants. However, in recent times, a variety of start-ups have pushed specific niche offerings, skin care offerings and so on. In fact, the likes of Beardo, Ustraa and The Man Company have made in-roads in the still niche male-grooming market in India.
Brand in early stages
Phy, according to Prasad will also be extended to offline stores.
“In another couple of months, the offline retailing strategy for Phy should be worked out. Once the brand stabilises, there could be 70:30 revenue split between online and offline,” he said.
While Phy is in “investment phase” and may take some more time to break even, Pureplay Skin Sciences has been EBITDA-positive for the last three years. Margins, however, are small, said Prasad.
“We have to see if Plum makes enough money to cover for Phy. With Phy, we are in an investment phase and the investments are likely to continue for some time, say another year or so,” he said.
Pureplay Skin Sciences, previously a bootstrapped company, recently raised an undisclosed amount of Series A funding from Unilever Venture Capital (VC). The company will leverage the funding in brand-building.
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