Dot & Key was founded in 2018 by husband-and-wife team Suyash Saraf and Anisha Saraf. It was acquired by Nykaa in 2021 for an undisclosed amount.
Since 2021, the company has grown five times, co-founder Suyash Saraf told investors during Nykaa’s first quarter earnings conference.
“The real game changer for us came back in 2021 when we shook hands with Nykaa for a stake in the company. It completely changed the game we were in. We had massive ambitions for Dot & Key. The next two years we spent restrategising, realigning, repricing our products in order to really start building Dot & Key as a large FMCG skin care company.
“I think all our efforts have paid off in 2023. We know have an annualised run rate of INR3bn (USD36.2m). We now have improved profitability and we are one of the top three skin care brands on Nykaa.com.”
He added that the company’s ambition now was to grow Dot & Key into a INR5bn (USD60m) brand by 2026.
A new market leader
In recent years, Dot & Key has significantly increased its market presence across various platforms and aims to reinforce is market leadership through product expansion across various categories.
“We’ve gained a lot of market share over the last couple of years across all marketplaces that we are available at. Our objective is to expand our leadership position in some categories by launching more products. By increasing our market share we aim to become a dominant player in the market,” said Saraf.
He said that 70% of the brand’s revenue currently comes from lower-tier cities in India and he believed that the brand’s “next growth story” would count on consumers in cities beyond India’s metro cities.
“We cater to this mass audience which have the aspiration to buy products yet don’t have the accessibility… Our growth is aligned with the growth of the metros and beyond them.”
Saraf added that the company aims to grow its offline distribution.
“We also want to focus on increasing our retail distribution via the Nykaa retail channel and other modern retail channels to increase retail distribution.”
Speedy product development
The company believes its strength lies in its ability to anticipate market trends and be first-to-market with innovations in India.
“Product innovation is at the core of Dot & Key as a brand and our biggest reason to win,” said Saraf.
“I think one of the key points for Dot & Key products being differentiated is that we identify the international trends very early on, and we make sure that we actually bring those products to the Indian market way before any competition can.”
He added that Indian consumers have an appetite for such products and emphasised the brand’s ability to bring these globally trending products at an accessible price point to Indians across all demographics.