Beauty unicorn Good Glamm Group struggles to pay staff amid cash crunch

The Mumbai-based company has delayed employee salaries while seeking new funding, as three board directors from major VCs recently departed

Beauty unicorn Good Glamm Group is struggling to pay staff salaries amid a severe cash crunch that had prompted three board directors to exit, according to people familiar with the company's finances.

 

“There is no money in the bank and the company is not able to pay salaries to the employees,” said one person with direct knowledge of the situation. The firm is actively scouting for investors to raise around ₹200 crore to ₹250 crore to stay afloat.

 

The financial crisis had led to the departure of three high-profile board members early this year. Anand Daniel, partner at Accel, Vishal Gupta, partner at Bessemer, and Gaurav Kothari, principal at Prosus Ventures, stepped down as independent directors, according to sources. The exodus of directors from the company's own investor base signals deeper concerns about its financial trajectory.

 

The Group declined to comment when asked about the salary delays.

 

In an internal company letter addressed to employees dated late June, the company acknowledged the ongoing funding challenges. “We unfortunately still do not have closure. We had expected the lenders to close something by the end of June, but while there is progress, they have not been able to close anything yet," said the letter, a copy of which was reviewed by Business Standard.

 

“This is extremely frustrating and agonising for all of us but we are pushing very hard for a deal closure,” the letter continued. The company managed to pay three weeks of salaries this month, but warned that “further salaries will be delayed” until new funding is secured. 

 

The salary delays have created mounting frustration among current and former employees. “It's June 2025, and like many former employees of Good Glamm Group, I'm still waiting for pending salary, full and final settlement, gratuity (a statutory right), Form 16-still not issued for the last financial year since January 2025,” posted one ex-employee on social media.

 

“All we have received are the same copy-paste responses of 'funds are being arranged, lenders are not allowing cash to go out.' Ex-employees have been completely ghosted-no replies from HR or senior leadership. No timelines, No closure."

 

The Mumbai-based company was founded in 2015 by Darpan Sanghvi, and later joined by Priyanka Gill, Naiyya Saggi and Nowshad Rizwanullah. It has raised a total of $342 million from investors like Warburg Pincus, Prosus, Bessemer Venture Partners, Accel, L'Occitane, and Amazon, according to data from Tracxn. As of April 2024, its valuation stood at $1.25 billion.

 

The company's troubles stem partly from an aggressive acquisition strategy that failed to deliver expected returns. In recent years, The Good Glamm Group acquired several companies, including The Moms Co, Sirona Hygiene, BulBul, Organic Harvest, Vidooly, MissMalini, and ScoopWhoop. However, industry sources said that the company's “inorganic strategy” has not yielded the expected benefits.

 

The cash crunch has already forced significant cost-cutting measures. In 2024, The Good Glamm Group reduced its workforce by 15 per cent or 150 employees as part of a restructuring exercise. That time the company employed approximately 850 people, down from about 1,000 before the layoffs.

 

The company's financial performance reveals the scale of its challenges. While it achieved a 2.5x increase in revenue in FY23, reaching ₹603 crore, up from ₹240 crore in FY22, it also reported massive losses of ₹917 crore during the same period. The company has not yet filed its annual report for FY24, raising additional concerns about transparency.

 

The Group's crisis reflects broader challenges facing Indian startups that pursued growth-at-all-costs strategies during the funding boom. The beauty and personal care market requires substantial marketing spend to build brand awareness, contributing to high cash burn rates that become unsustainable when funding dries up, analysts say.