Fab-Bag, SUGAR and a Reset: Vineeta Singh on Building a Beauty Brand, and Rebuilding It

The Path Through Quetzal and Fab-Bag

Vineeta Singh went to Delhi Public School, R. K. Puram, graduated in electrical engineering from IIT Madras in 2005 and took an MBA at IIM Ahmedabad in 2007. Her first company, Quetzal, founded in 2007 to provide background verification for recruiters, did not succeed. That is where the story usually starts for founders who later make something work.

In 2012 she founded Fab-Bag, a subscription service that delivered a box of beauty products every month. The service gave her something more valuable than revenue: data on what women actually bought. In 2015, with her husband, Kaushik Mukherjee, she used that insight to launch SUGAR Cosmetics, a makeup brand aimed at young Indian women. She has been a judge on Shark Tank India since its launch on SonyLIV in 2021, and received recognition including Entrepreneur's Retail Start-Up of the Year (2019), Forbes India W-Power (2021) and the World Economic Forum's Young Global Leader title (2022).

Raising Capital and Building Stores

SUGAR was backed by A91 Partners, Elevation Capital, L Catterton and India Quotient. In 2022 it raised US$50 million in a round led by L Catterton, and the actor Ranveer Singh invested in September of that year. Reporting from Tracxn put its valuation at about Rs 2,943 crore (US$350 million) as of January 2025, and Inc42 reported a Rs 2,600-2,700 crore valuation at a November 2024 raise. The company says it has 200 exclusive stores in 50 cities and thousands of retail touchpoints, with online channels accounting for about 40% of sales.

In early 2024, SUGAR reported its first profitable month and annual revenue up about 20% to just above Rs 500 crore. Its stated plan was to list within two to three years, if it kept up profitability and passed Rs 1,000 crore in revenue.

“A store that loses money every month does not become profitable by multiplying.”

The Harder Numbers and Store Rationalisation

The financial year to March 2025 went the other way. Storyboard18 reported revenue of Rs 415 crore, down 17.8% from Rs 505 crore, with negative EBITDA of Rs 108 crore. Inc42, using filings, reported operating revenue of Rs 404.4 crore and an EBITDA loss of Rs 116 crore, with a net loss of Rs 135 crore, nearly double the Rs 68.4 crore of the year before. The two outlets differ by a few crore on revenue and EBITDA, so read the figures as roughly Rs 405-415 crore of revenue and an operating loss of about Rs 108-116 crore. Inc42 also cited an Economic Times report that SUGAR shut 30-40% of the physical stores it had opened because of losses per store.

On 4 September 2026, Inc42 reported, based on company filings, that SUGAR had raised Rs 144.47 crore (about US$15.3 million) from A91 Partners' emerging fund, at a post-money valuation it estimated at Rs 550-600 crore. That is a cut of roughly 75-80% from the previous round. A registered valuer's report dated 30 June 2026, cited in the article, said the company "has demonstrated a sustained and worsening pattern of financial deterioration over the past two financial years." Inc42 said it had contacted the company; no response was reported. Because this is reported from filings and a third-party valuation, we describe it as reported, not confirmed by the company.

What the Story Teaches and Strategic Takeaways

Beauty is a crowded category in India, with global brands, new direct-to-consumer labels and the e-commerce platforms' own private labels all competing for the same shopper. Brands that won early attention through influencers and fast launches now have to prove that customers come back without heavy discounting. SUGAR's experience also shows how quickly valuations can move once a growth story slows: the company's stated path in early 2024 was a listing within two to three years, and in 2025 that target was reported to have been pushed back by a further two years after the FY25 decline.

For readers, it is an honest case of what happens when retail expansion runs ahead of store-level economics. SUGAR grew fast, offline and online, and then had to reshape the model. Other direct-to-consumer brands in India have hit the same wall.

What other founders can take from it: 1. Failure is data. Quetzal and Fab-Bag fed SUGAR. 2. Count store economics early. A store that loses money per month will not become profitable by multiplying. 3. A down round is not the end. It resets expectations and gives time to fix operations. 4. Be transparent. Founders who explain the numbers keep staff and investors on side.

Independent editorial profile built from public sources and filings reported by the media. We have not interviewed Ms Singh and have no comment from the company.