Plum

A chemical engineer left consulting to make vegan skincare from a flat in Thane, and built the brand on colour instead of beige.

Small and new·From India·Founded 2013·Members

At a glance

Founded: Set up in 2013 and selling its first 15 or so products in 2014, out of a flat in Thane that held little more than a table and an internet modem.²⁹
Founded by: Shankar Prasad, a chemical engineer from IIT Bombay with earlier stints at Hindustan Unilever, McKinsey and Everstone Capital.¹
Home: Mumbai. The parent company is Pureplay Skin Sciences.²⁷
Owned by: Private. A91 Partners led a $35 million round in March 2022 alongside Unilever Ventures and Faering Capital, valuing it at $250 million.⁹¹⁰
What it sells: Vegan skincare and body care, with hair care and fragrance added later. It sells online and through roughly 20,000 outlets.⁶⁸
Size: Revenue from operations of ₹402 crore in 2024-25, up 23.3 per cent, with a profit after tax of ₹25 crore.⁹ In April 2026 Prasad said Plum had crossed ₹500 crore in the year just ended.³

How it got here

2013

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Prasad, then 13 years into a career that ran through Hindustan Unilever, McKinsey and Everstone Capital, started Plum on his own savings and spent a year studying the market before he sold anything.¹²

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Sources for what is above

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