Inside Good Glamm's collapse: A timeline of how the crisis unfolded

Time of India

3 days ago

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The Good Glamm Group is breaking up after lenders enforced their charge on individual brands owned by the embattled startup. The unceremonious end to the content-to-commerce startup's run as a ' house of brands ' conglomerate comes after missed funding opportunities and the subsequent cash crunch After its rebranding four years ago, Good Glamm went on an aggressive acquisition spree to create an arrangement where it would use content platforms to market its beauty and personal care products. It often overpaid for brands that struggled to scale and had to sell some of them for a fraction of their cost as things went south. The company has been trying to sell other brands as well.MyGlamm rebrands as The Good Glamm Group, transitioning into a house-of-brands platform. Around this time, it also acquired Priyanka Gill's POPxo and Naiyya Saggi's Babychakra.Good Glamm raises $30 million at a flat valuation of $1.25 billion from existing investors, including Warburg Pincus, Prosus Ventures, Bessemer, and Accel , aimed at meeting working capital requirements.Feminine hygiene brand Sirona and mother and baby care startup The Moms Co., along with investors from Indian Angel Network (IAN), issue default notices to Good Glamm over delayed payments. The company initiates arbitration proceedings against IAN. The legal dispute was later resolved after Good Glamm completed the pending acquisition payments.Representatives from investors Accel, Prosus Ventures, and Bessemer Venture Partners resign from the board The company sells Sirona back to its founders for about Rs 150 crore, well below the Rs 450 crore it paid earlier. Post-acquisition, Sirona's sales declined to an eighth of their peak, as the brand struggled within Good Glamm's broader portfolio. The company's financial issues, including salary delays and disruptions across its vendor network, further strained operations.In the same month, Good Glamm offloaded ScoopWhoop , a digital media firm, to meme marketing agency WLDD for around Rs 18-20 crore, a fraction of its 2021 acquisition cost of Rs 100 crore. ScoopWhoop cofounders Rishi Pratim Mukherjee, Sattvik Mishra, and Sriparna Tikekar took legal action against Good Glamm over unpaid dues.ET reported that the company was in talks to sell its media and talent arm, MissMalini Entertainment, to marketing agency Creativefuel.The company fails to pay salaries for two consecutive months due to a cash crunch. Full and final settlements for existing employees also remain pending.The company shut its Vasant Kunj office in New Delhi earlier this year, briefly moved operations to Greater Kailash, and has now shifted to a remote-work model.Restructuring and refinancing efforts started earlier this month but failed. Lenders enforce their charge on individual brands, forcing the sale of brands one by one. This ends the group's run as a house-of-brands platform.Good Glamm chief executive Darpan Sanghvi said he is working closely with lenders and incoming buyers to facilitate transitions, clear dues, and secure placements for both current and former employees under the new brand owners.He also made a personal financial pledge to cover the arrears to employees in case lenders are unable to complete the brand sales or if the dues remain uncleared by the new owners. He committed to contributing 25% of his future post-tax income from salary or equity gains in any future ventures towards settling outstanding employee payments.He will also set up a Good Glamm Restitution Fund within the next 60 days, Sanghvi said, and promised to use the fund, backed by equity from his future ventures, to settle dues owed to vendors and compensate shareholders for their losses.