Swanrose, a hygiene and personal care brand created by Roshini Sanah Jaiswal - of Aristocrat Whisky fame -is aiming to disrupt the hygiene and personal care segment with its quality products, the company said in an interaction with VCCircle on Wednesday.
Swanrose launched its sanitiser - ‘Just Human’ - in India and US in early 2020. “Around 80% of germs and diseases come through your hands. One need to sanitise themselves multiple times with a regular sanitiser, whereas ‘Just Human’ can be applied just once,” said Jaiswal.
The product, Jaiswal claimed, uses nano engineering to ensure 24-hour effectiveness. "The differentiator is the proprietary-smart molecule imported from the US, otherwise widely used by consumer product makers there,” she added.
This is significant, as several liquor makers used their supply of extra neutral alcohol (ENA) to produce sanitizers in large quantities to meet the growing demand amid a clear shortage of personal hygiene products in the market last year. Even the leading consumer goods makers in India have slashed their sanitizer prices to cash in the opportunity.
The company is also planning to enter the house cleaning and personal care segments. “We are going to launch our house cleaners by January and start offering our personal care and beauty products since May. We would eventually like to come up with entire range of personal care products such as skin care, hair care etc,” said Jaiswal.
The company’s flagship product has been the sanitizer with 5 SKUs (stock keeping units). Swanrose is also likely to launch Shimmer, a 24-hour hand sanitizer, which Jaiswal claims would be a first.
Swanrose is also working towards aggressive expansion of retail touch points. The company is currently present in 1,100 stores such as Modern Bazaar and Apollo Pharmacy across Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru, among others. “We want to reach at least 2000 stores by the end of December this year,” she said.
The company is also present on ecommerce platforms such as Flipkart and Amazon, and soon will be onboarding NetMeds, 1MG and Nykaa.
However, more than 50% of sales at present comes from the gifting segment. The company has tied up with several pharma majors such as Emcure Pharmaceuticals and Dr Reddy’s to provide this facility to doctors. “We are also planning to extend our services to hospitals, hotels, airlines, and schools, among others,” Jaiswal added.
Swanrose is also planning to raise its first institutional round of funding to fuel its expansion plans. It is likely to raise its Series A round of funding, which will be primarily used for branding and marketing purposes. “We are in talks with some of the local early-stage venture capital (VC)investors for the same,” Jaiswal added.
