India’s newest self-made billionaire Falguni Nayar urges women to dream big, as beauty empire goes public
- Nayar runs FSN E-Commerce Ventures, which recently raised US$720 million (53.5 billion rupees) in its IPO, making her India’s wealthiest self-made female billionaire
- ‘Women need to allow the spotlight of their lives to be on themselves,’ Nayar said in an interview after the trading debut
Falguni Nayar, 58, joined the rarefied ranks of India’s self-made billionaire women this week as the beauty start-up she founded went public and promptly doubled on its trading debut. Now she’s encouraging more women to seize control.
Nayar runs India’s FSN E-Commerce Ventures, which raised 53.5 billion rupees (US$720 million) in its initial public offering and saw shares rise 96 per cent on its first day of trading.
That makes Nayar, who owns about half of the company, worth almost US$7 billion and India’s wealthiest self-made female billionaire, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
“Women need to allow the spotlight of their lives to be on themselves,” Nayar said in an interview after the trading debut. “I hope more women like me dare to dream for themselves.”
Nayar founded her company, which runs the e-commerce site Nykaa, in 2012 after working in investment banking and guiding other entrepreneurs through the IPO process.