Nykaa’s Q1 Snapshot, Klassroom Wraps Up IPO & More

Nykaa’s Stellar Q1

Nykaa fired on all cylinders in Q1. The quarter saw the beauty ecommerce giant clock a three-fold jump in profits, expand margins and increase its footprint. Meanwhile, its fashion business turned EBITDA positive for the first time. 

Here is a snapshot of Nykaa’s Q1 FY27 numbers:

• Net profit zoomed 3X YoY to ₹79.8 Cr 
• Operating revenue rose 29% YoY to ₹2,782 Cr
• Total expenses also grew 26% YoY to ₹2,662 Cr
• EBITDA grew 68% YoY to ₹236 Cr, while EBITDA margin expanded to 8.5%

The Beauty Upside: Powered by stronger engagement, improving margins, higher average order values and a premium portfolio, the beauty business remained Nykaa’s core engine. The vertical contributed 90% of its total revenue in Q1. The quarter also saw Nykaa Beauty deepen its omnichannel footprint to 324 stores, while onboarding global names to broaden choice. 

The Fashion Fiesta: Nykaa Fashion turned EBITDA positive for the first time on the back of stronger operating leverage. The business also managed to accelerate GMV and net sales on the back of a wider brand mix and sharper merchandising. Expansions into activewear, kidswear and footwear also helped Nykaa’s fashion arm move from a growth bet to a serious contender.

The Q-Comm Mania: The quarter also saw Nykaa scale its quick commerce platform to 13 cities, with a target to cross 25 by end-FY27. While domestic consumption remained strong, Nykaa’s Gulf joint venture, Nysaa, continued to face pressures due to geopolitical tensions. This dampened overseas acceleration.

The House Of Brands: Premiumisation push also remained high on the beauty giant’s agenda. Nykaa now plans to acquire a 51% stake in D2C skincare brand Aminu to fill the gap in its premium skincare portfolio and leverage the brand’s salon distribution. Together with earlier buys like Dot & Key and Earth Rhythm, Nykaa appears to be reinforcing its house of brands strategy across categories and price points.

As the beauty ecommerce major finally marries scale with profitability, here is how Nykaa fared on the financial front in Q1…

From The Editor’s Desk

Klassroom Wraps Up IPO

• The edtech platform’s public issue was oversubscribed 146% on the third and final day of bidding, receiving bids for 25.66 Lakh shares against 17.58 Lakh shares on offer.
• Retail investors were the most interested in the public float and oversubscribed their quota by 1.79X. NIIs finally picked up pace and oversubscribed their portion by 1.35X, while QIBs bid for 100% of their quota.
•  The public issue comprised a fresh issue of up to 19.89 Lakh shares and an OFS of up to 4.66 Lakh shares. At the upper end of its ₹151-159 price band, it is looking to raise ₹39 Cr via the IPO. Klassroom will now tentatively list on the BSE SME platform on August 7.

MapmyIndia’s Profitable Q1 

• The geotech company reported a 6.3% YoY jump in its consolidated net profit to ₹50.4 Cr in Q1 FY27. This came on the back of operating revenues rising 14.9% YoY to ₹139.7 Cr during the quarter under review.
• Costs also continued to bite as total expenses zoomed 26.6% YoY to ₹92.9 Cr. Parallelly, EBITDA remained flat YoY, while EBITDA margin narrowed to 40.2% from 45.9% in Q1 FY26 due to a change in product mix.
• MapmyIndia derived the biggest chunk of its top line from enterprises, aided by new deployments across mobility, logistics, BFSI, manufacturing and telecom. On the consumer front, demand for connected mobility solutions drove revenue. 

Vaaree Nets ₹65 Cr

• The home decor marketplace has raised around $6.8 Mn in its Series A round co-led by Hero Enterprise and Cap Alpha Ventures to expand its fulfilment network, accelerate next-day deliveries and scale its AI-powered discovery engine VibeCheck. 
• Founded in 2022, Vaaree operates an online marketplace that offers more than 1.5 Lakh products across categories such as bedding, furnishings, kitchenware, bath products, and lighting. Prior to this round, it had raised over $6 Mn.
• The fundraise comes amid growing investor interest in the growing Indian D2C home decor ecosystem, which is seeing healthy traction on the back of rising disposable incomes, a massive real estate uptick and growing consumer aspirations.

Mintoak Acquires ICC Loyalty

• The fintech startup has acquired the UAE-based loyalty and rewards tech company for an undisclosed amount to foray into customer engagement and data monetisation. The deal was funded via Mintoak’s balance sheet and a small debt component. 
• Founded in 2017, Mintoak helps financial institutions offer business management and payments tools to their SME merchant base. The startup works with over 50 banks across 20 countries and processes over $93 Bn in annual payment volume. 
• Meanwhile, media giant Times Network has acquired fintech startup OpiGo for an undisclosed amount. The move is part of its business channel ET NOW’s expansion into investor-focused financial services.

Google Play Accelerator’s 2026 Cohort

• The big tech giant has picked 20 Indian startups for the 2026 cohort of its Google Play Accelerator India programme. The initiative offers support to selected ventures across AI integration, monetisation, security and growth.
• The third cohort comprises startups from sectors like edtech, healthtech, gaming, agritech, fintech, ecommerce, media and entertainment. The names include Chaupal, ChennaiGames, Frontier Games, among others.
• India’s mobile app market generated a record $345 Mn in consumer spending and 6.6 Bn downloads in Q2 2027. As the market surges, growth is heavily being led by non-gaming sectors like GenAI, streaming and productivity tools.

Inc42 Markets

Inc42 Startup Spotlight

Can Octobotics Make Hazardous Industrial Inspections Human-Free?

Industrial inspections can be a cumbersome task. Workers have to climb 30 foot tanks, enter confined spaces and face toxic gases just to check for cracks and corrosion. Octobotics wants to change this by sending crawler robots into these zones instead of humans.

Bots To The Rescue: Founded in 2020, Octobotics builds inspection robots for oil and gas, railways and other asset-heavy sectors. Its core product is a magnetic crawler robot that sticks to steel surfaces and can crawl across tanks and pipes. The startup’s bots also use phased array ultrasonics to detect cracks and defects, mapping their location, size and depth. 

From Pilots To Scale: The startup is now building a unified platform under 15 kgs with interchangeable modules for UT gridding and weld inspection. Octobotics is also pivoting to a service model, with plans to add a SaaS reporting layer and eventually rent robots to third-party vendors. 

The Road Ahead: Backed by Navam Capital, Octobotics counts the likes of marquee names such as Indian Navy, Bharat Petroleum and Indian Oil as its customers. The home turf alone accounts for half of its top line, with the remaining coming from overseas markets. The robotics startup is now targeting ₹6 Cr revenue in FY27. So, can Octobotics make hazardous inspections fully robotic?

Infographic Of The Day

From Myntra to Eternal, H1 FY27 saw several high-profile leadership transitions across the Indian startup ecosystem. Let’s take a look…

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