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VLCC's Rs 100 crore investment for reinventing beauty, wellness, and digital presence

Beauty and wellness company VLCC is investing about Rs 100 crore in upgrading existing clinics as well as adding new outlets. Vandana Luthra Curls and Curves (VLCC) is a public Limited Company with a strong national and international presence that offers weight management and beauty programs for skin, body and hair treatment besides dermatology and cosmetology solutions. The company recently acquired men’s grooming brand Ustraa and strengthened its presence on the e-commerce channel. In December last year, global investment firm, Carlyle, acquired a majority stake in VLCC.
Vikas Gupta, Group CEO, VLCC, says that they have seen a strong upswing in revenue growth in the past two quarters. They are also witnessing more than 100% growth in customer acquisition in terms of services business. They are doing a lot of capital expenditure on strategic priorities including investments on human resource, R&D and upgrading infrastructure of the clinics as well as technology to help acquire new customers.
Nearly two-thirds of the company’s revenues come from its services business. Thus, in this fiscal they would be spending about Rs 100 crore on this segment.
In terms of its products business, VLCC has a direct reach across 110,000 outlets in India besides a strong retail footprint in the wholesale channel. VLCC is uniquely positioned due to its strong brand equity and omni-channel model and aims to grow ahead of the industry growth rates.
The company has added 10 new clinics or salons in the past few months in India. VLCC Group’s operations currently span 310 locations in 139 cities and 11 countries, including India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Singapore, Thailand, the UAE, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, and Kenya. Gupta said that “significant acceleration” in addition to new clinics is also on the cards.
VLCC is heavily investing in expanding the assisted channel, where beauty advisers provide consultations to consumers, in both general trade and modern trade stores for our products. Simultaneously, as the VLCC brand has been underrepresented in the e-commerce channel, their strategic focus is on securing rightful market share. The acquisition of Ustraa has played a pivotal role in acquiring these capabilities as they are actively developing a direct-to-consumer (D2C) range for VLCC. The company is stepping up investments on R&D and will allocate 4-5% of its revenues in this space.
On average the beauty and personal care sector is projected to grow at 10-15 per cent growth rate, while the premium segment is expected to grow at a higher rate. The company remains open for other acquisition targets that can help the brand gain further scale.

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