Hyphen, a new-age skincare brand co-founded by PEP Technologies—the parent company of mCaffeine—and celebrity entrepreneur Kriti Sanon, has completed its first year of operations. Hyphen claims it is one of India’s fastest-growing direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands, achieving revenue of Rs 100 crore in just 12 months.
Speaking to CNBC-TV18, Tarun Sharma, co-founder and CEO of Hyphen expressed confidence in scaling the brand to ₹500 crore within three years, attributing this optimism to the brand’s strong performance indicators.
“The repeats are very high, the average rating of all our products is crossing 4.5 out of 5, and we’ve achieved double-digit market share in sub-categories like lip balm within eight to nine months of our launch,” Sharma noted.
He further highlighted that the brand generated close to 1 billion impressions in the past seven months, reflecting a high consumer intent. Moving forward, Hyphen plans to expand its product portfolio while delving deeper into successful categories to maintain its growth trajectory.
Kriti Sanon, co-founder and CCO of Hyphen shared her excitement about the brand’s progress. She noted that customer loyalty has been exceptional, with 60-70% of customers returning. “The combination of quality and affordability has been our unique selling proposition,” Sanon said. She also highlighted the success of Hyphen’s lip balms, which have been bestsellers across platforms.
In a separate development, CollegeDekho, a Gurugram-based higher education services startup, has successfully raised $9 million in an extended Series B funding
round led by existing investors. This latest funding, combined with a previous $9 million from Janeville Limited in December 2022, brings CollegeDekho’s total funding to over $60 million.
Ruchir Arora, co-founder and CEO of CollegeDekho highlighted that the company aims to reach approximately ₹300 crore in revenue in the current year.
“We aim to reach approximately ₹300 crore in revenue this year. With CollegeDekho handling around 1 lakh admissions out of the 1 crore total annual admissions in colleges, there is significant growth potential,” Arora said.
He also highlighted the company’s investment in the skilling sector, with its own branded courses and a growing student enrollment of around 2,000.
Arora also revealed that the latest funds will be directed towards operational growth, with a major focus on achieving cash profitability. “We have reached EBITDA profitability and are working towards becoming cash-positive soon,” he added.
Lastly, at the recently held Google I/O Connect in Bengaluru, Google introduced a new suite of tools and initiatives aimed at empowering India’s AI innovators. Manish Gupta, Director of Google DeepMind, and Seshu Ajjarapu, Senior Director of Google DeepMind, discussed the impact of these initiatives and the future of AI in India.
Watch the accompanying video for the entire discussion.
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