Meet woman, who was once a homemaker now runs Rs 15000 crore business empire, her name is…, business is…

Ghazal Alagh and her husband, Varun Alagh, established Mamaearth, a personal beauty care brand focused on environment-friendly beauty and personal hygiene products.

Ghazal Alagh, the co-founder of personal beauty care brand Mamaearth, has been named as India’s “youngest self-made woman entrepreneur” in the IDFC FIRST Private & Hurun India’s Top 200 Self-Made Entrepreneurs of the Millennia 2024 list. Ghazal and her husband started Mamaearth in 2016 with an initial investment of Rs 25 lakh, and less than a decade later, the company has grown into a unicorn with a market valuation of Rs Rs 15,500 crore.

Who is Ghazal Alagh?

Born and raised in a middle income home in Gurugram, Haryana, Ghazal Alagh completed her early education in her home state and later earned a Bachelors degree in computer application from Punjab University. After her graduation, Ghazal joined the New York Academy of Art where she completed her Summer Intensive Course in Design and Applied Arts and her Intensive Course in Figurative Art in Modern Art in 2013.

Three years later, in 2016, Ghazal Alagh and her husband, Varun Alagh, established Mamaearth, a personal beauty care brand focused on environment-friendly beauty and personal hygiene products, specially designed for mothers and newborns. The couple put in an initial investment of Rs 25 lakh, and under their leadership, the Mamaearth soon became one of the major brands in the personal beauty care space, and also became the first Asian brand to earn the MadeSafe label, making it a trustworthy brand for moms and infants.

Soon, Honasa Consumer Limited, the parent company of Mamaearth, became a ‘unicorn’, and currently has a valuation of Rs 15,000 crore. A startup earns the coveted ‘unicorn’ tag when the company crosses the elusive $1 billion valuation threshold.

A ‘unicorn’ no longer

However, Mamaearth has reportedly lost the precious ‘unicorn’ tag, after its parent company, Honasa Consumer Limited, lost 50 percent of its market cap in the last two months.

In September, the company was valued at around Rs 15,000, with its stock trading at a healthy Rs 541 per share. But things went awry as its stock eroded gradually, crashing to Rs. 227 in November, wiping out Rs 7,500 crore of the company’s market cap. Currently, MamaEarth is valued at less than  $1 billion, thus losing the coveted ‘unicorn’ tag.

According to latest market data, Mamaearth has a valuation of around Rs 8,300 crore, as of December 19, 2024.