Vineeta Singh | |
---|---|
Born | 1983 | (age 41)
Nationality | Indian |
Education | Delhi Public School, R. K. Puram |
Alma mater | IIT Madras IIM Ahmedabad |
Occupation | Entrepreneur |
Years active | 2007–present |
Organization | Sugar Cosmetics |
Television | Shark Tank India (2021–present) |
Spouse |
Kaushik Mukherjee (m. 2011) |
Children | 2 |
Parent |
|
Vineeta Singh (born 1983) is an Indian entrepreneur and CEO and co-founder of Sugar Cosmetics. She has been a Shark (i.e. judge/investor) on the business reality TV show Shark Tank India since the show started airing on SonyLIV in 2021.
Singh was born in 1983 in Anand, Gujarat.[1] Her mother holds a PhD and her father Tej P. Singh is a biophysicist at the All India Institutes of Medical Sciences.[2]
Singh completed her education at Delhi Public School, R. K. Puram in 2001.[3] She then enrolled in Indian Institute of Technology (Madras) that year.[4] Singh completed her electrical engineering studies at IIT-M and earned her bachelor's degree in 2005.[5] Afterward, she obtained an MBA from Indian Institute of Management (Ahmedabad) in 2007.[6]
During her MBA studies, in 2006, she worked as a summer intern at Deutsche Bank and rejected a job despite an annual Rs 1 crore salary.[7][8] Singh and the other graduate who rejected the same offer wanted to start their own lingerie business,[9] but the idea did not take off as they could not raise the required funding.[6]
In 2007, Singh founded her first startup Quetzal.[10] However, providing background verification checks to recruiters failed to succeed. She started her second startup Fab-Bag in 2012, a subscription platform that provided monthly deliveries of beauty products.[11] Her third startup, Sugar Cosmetics, Singh founded together with her husband in 2015.[12] The company sells cosmetics and personal care products geared towards the Indian market.[13][14] After closing a $50 million deal with private equity firm L Catterton, Singh characterized the company's products as catering to the preferences of women with diverse skin tones.[15] In September 2022, Bollywood star Ranveer Singh invested an undisclosed amount and became a "brand evangelist" of Sugar Cosmetics.[16][17]
Singh appeared on the hard copy cover pages of business magazines, such as Forbes India, Business Today, and Businessworld.[18][19][20][21] To Business Today, she revealed that funding was once only granted under the condition that her husband joined the company full-time, which she viewed as gender discrimination.[22][23]
In 2021, Forbes India listed Singh as one of its Forbes India W-Power list of women achievers.[24][2]
In 2023, Bollywood actress Kareena Kapoor Khan formed a joint venture with cofounders of Sugar Cosmetics, Vineeta Singh and Kaushik Mukherjee, to launch a Korean skincare brand Quench Botanics in India.[25]
Singh is one of the major investors/judges on the business reality show Shark Tank India.[26][27]
In 2022, Singh along with the other Shark Tank India judges appeared as a VIP contestant in Kaun Banega Crorepati, the Hindi version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.[28] She also appeared as a guest on The Kapil Sharma Show together with other Shark Tank India judges in the same year.[29][30]
Singh, respectively her startup Sugar Cosmetics, received the following awards related to her entrepreneurship:
In 2011, Vineeta Singh married Kaushik Mukherjee and the couple have two sons.[36] She met Kaushik during their studies at IIM Ahmedabad.[37][38]
Singh is a triathlete and ultramarathon runner and has participated in 20 marathons, ultramarathons, and 12 half-marathons.[39] She also took part in the 89-km Comrades Marathon from 2012 to 2014.[40] She completed the 2017 Ironman Triathlon in Austria.[41] In the 2018 Mumbai Marathon, she ran a total of 21 km in 2:42:51s while being 6 months pregnant.[42]