Money matters: How Nykaa's Falguni Nayar has become India's richest self-made woman

Nykaa founder Falguni Nayar is now India’s wealthiest self-made woman, according to the IIFL Wealth Hurun India rich list 2022.

Nayar, with a net worth of ₹38,700 crore, surpassed Biocon founder Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw (₹24,800 crore)  to become the richest self-made Indian woman on the list released on Wednesday.

“An investment banker turned entrepreneur, Falguni Nayar disrupted a brick-and-mortar industry by taking a digital route to sell beauty products in 2012. Her start-up, Nykaa, is one of the profitable start-ups in the country with a strong omni-channel presence. Over the last two years, she has diversified from beauty into fashion and lifestyle and has a well-established portfolio of over 2,600+ international brands and 100+ offline stores. The company recently raised fresh capital for expansion through a blockbuster IPO. Falguni was the recipient of EY Entrepreneur of The Year Award in the Start-up category in 2019," an IFFL statement read.

But who is Nayar? How did she become India’s richest woman? Let’s take a closer look:

Nayar seemed destined for entrepreneurship.

As per Economic Times, Nayar, born into a Gujarati family, was witness to household chatter revolving around investments, the stock market and trade. Her father ran a small bearings company, assisted by her mother.

Nayar graduated from Ahmedabad’s Indian Institute of Management and then spent a majority of her career at Kotak Mahindra Capital

It was in 2009 that Nayar, then managing director at the firm, first began considering becoming an entrepreneur, as per Forbes.

By 2011, she’d come up with a couple of ideas including becoming a multi-brand retailer in the beauty segment.

In 2012,  months away from turning 50, Naya hit upon the idea of Nykaa [meaning heroine in Sanskrit> to provide beauty products to women and men in the country online, as per News18.

“I wanted to stand for those women who want to be beautiful for themselves, not for men or other women," she said about Nykaa, as per News18.

In March 2012,  she quit her job and took the perilous dive.

As per Economic Times, Nykaa in its formative years  was funded entirely by Nayar and her husband Sanjay Nayar, the chairman of private equity major KKR & Co.

The company ran on family funds for two years because I didn’t want to raise money. I wanted to make the metrics happen,” the newspaper quoted as saying.  “We had good momentum by the time I went to investors. We had access, since my husband and I were both bankers.”

As per Economic Times, the company became a Unicorn in March 2020, after just five rounds of funding—of which only three involved institutional investors. Nykaa is also profitable—a rarity among Indian startups, as per the report.

In November 2021, Nayar took her company public.

“I started Nykaa at the age of 50 with no experience. I hope the Nykaa journey can inspire each of you to be the Nykaa of your lives," Nayar said  at the opening bell of her company’s listing on the National Stock Exchange (NSE).

Nkyaa now sells more than 4,000 brands online and in its more than 100 stores, as per Forbes.

Its investors include US private equity giant TPG Growth and billionaires Harsh Mariwala and Harry Banga, as per the report.

Nayar serves on several boards including the Aviva Insurance Dabur India and is an Independent Member on the Tata Motors Board.

India’s richest women

Rekha Jhunjhunwala, the wife of late stock investor Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, at a net worth is ₹37,200 crore, Godrej’s Smita V Crishna ( ₹32,000 crore) and Radha Vembu of Zoho Corporation ( ₹30,500 crore) also made the list alongside Nayar.

Rekha is an active investor herself with an equity portfolio worth Rs 9,800 crore across different sectors, as per New Indian Express.

While Jhunjhunwala’s firm Rare Enterprises will continue to be managed by his long-term lieutenants Utpal Seth and Amit Goela, Rekha is expected to play a larger role in the company’s management.

The couple has three children – daughter Nishtha born in 2004 and twin sons Aryaman and Aryaveer born in 2009.

Crishna, 71, owns a fifth of the Godrej Group, along with her brothers, as per The Hindu.

As per Forbes, her husband Vijay Crishna, a well-known theatre actor, and daughter Nyrika Holkar, work in the Godrej Group.

In 2014, Crishna bought a bungalow belonging to the late atomic physicist, Dr. Homi J Bhabha, for ₹371 crore.

As per GQ India, the 50-year-old Vembu owns a majority of shares in Zoho, an Indian software development company she co-founded with her brother Sridhar.

Vembu was born on 24 December, 1972, in Chennai to Sambamurthy Vembu, a stenographer in Madras High Court.

She graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras in 1997 with a degree in industrial management after completing her primary education at National Higher Secondary School in Chennai, as per GQ India.

It was in 1996 that she, while pursuing higher education, along with her brother Sridhar who has a PhD in electrical engineering from Princeton, founded a company called AdvenNet.

This company, later renamed Zoho Corporation, would go on to have more than 60 million users and 12 offices in nine countries around the world.

World’s richest women

While those that made it to the list have impressive portfolios, they’re still some ways behind the richest women in the world – Françoise Bettencourt Meyers, Alice Walton and Julia Koch.

Meyers, the granddaughter of the founder of beauty giant L’Oréal, is worth an estimated $74.8 billion, according to Forbes.

Walton, part of the famed family that controls Walmart (the Arkansas-based retailer built up by late patriarch Sam Walton) is worth $65.3 billon.

She was previously the world’s richest woman before being displaced by Meyers.

Koch, the widow of conservative donor and US philanthropist David Koch, is worth $60 billion. She and her children own 42 per cent of Koch Industries, the second-largest private company in the US, as per Forbes.

With inputs from agencies

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