Mumbai, 14 September 2022 | Nobel Hygiene Pvt Ltd., the largest Indian manufacturer of absorption hygiene products, today announced that it has raised INR 132 crores from existing investor Sixth Sense Ventures, India’s first domestic consumer-centric venture fund. This is the largest tranche of primary investment to date in Nobel Hygiene.
Nobel Hygiene will utilize the funds to accelerate its growth trajectory towards becoming India’s No 1 absorption hygiene products giant, and to further strengthen its manufacturing prowess.
With the current investment, Nobel Hygiene now, cumulatively, becomes Sixth Sense’s largest investment in the FMCG segment.
In June 2021, Nobel Hygiene raised INR 450-500 crores in an investment round led by Quadria Capital, Asia’s leading healthcare-focused private equity firm. During this round, Sixth Sense Ventures also bought shares in an independent parallel transaction from other angel investors while PE investors CLSA Capital Partners, Access India fund and co-investors exited the investment.
Established by Founder Kamal Johari in 2000, Nobel Hygiene created the adult diaper category in India with its market leading brand ‘Friends’. Friendsdominates the adult diaper market in India with a 60%+ market share and has sustained its leadership position for over 20 years.
Nobel Hygiene also has been at the forefront of introducing world class absorbency products in the baby diaper category via its brands Teddyy, and Snuggy (a brand it acquired from Godrej in 2018), and in the sanitary pads category via RIO Pads.
Nobel has leveraged its distribution network of Friends and strong product know-how to become the 4th largest player in the Indian baby diaper segment which is dominated by the top 3 global MNCs.
With diapers requiring a fairly complex manufacturing process, Nobel has built a robust back-end. It is India’s first and only large scale indigenous manufacturer of adult and baby diapers. The company has two manufacturing units in Nashik, Maharashtra and Halol, Gujarat. Strong technical understanding and focus on continuous innovation has enabled Nobel to successfully grow at an excellent 23% CAGR in the last three years. The Company is on track to hit Rs. 1000crs in revenue at the close of this financial year.
Nobel operates in the ~US$2.5b Indian absorbency category which is growing at ~15% per annum. With 24 million babies per year, one in six babies in the world are born in India. Despite this, diaper category penetration in India remains extremely low at 7%. India also has the second largest population of senior citizens but adult diaper category penetration is at 3% only. Average penetration in the category globally is 25-30%, with the USA being at 65%. This presents a huge opportunity for Nobel to capture.
Nobel Hygiene and Sixth Sense Ventures were represented, in the closing of this infusion, by legal partners Khaitan & Co. and ICUL, respectively.
Nikhil Vora, Founder & CEO of Sixth Sense Ventures said, “Nobel fits perfectly well into the Sixth Sense thesis of betting on first generation founders, creating challenger brands in the high potential US$2.5b absorbency category. We have been big believers in this category, one of the few consumer categories that ensures high frequency, brand loyalty along with a long consumer lifecycle (average of 3yrs for baby diapers, 30+ yrs for sanitary napkins and 10+ years for adult diapers). We see Nobel (led by Kamal Kumar Johari) as a perfect opportunity to play the hygiene segment in India. Super stoked to cement our relationship with Nobel Hygiene through this investment.”
Kamal Johari, MD & CEO, Nobel Hygiene said, “We are the largest Indian absorption hygiene manufacturers, and are excited to further accelerate our plans with this new investment alongside one of the best Indian FMCG analysts, and a shrewd investor, Mr Nikhil Vora.Now that our factory expansion in Gujarat is complete, we are poised to manufacture more, better, and faster to meet increasing demands across the country. This, alongside the investment, will help us progress towards our goals in the coming years; making up for the COVID slump the industry experienced in the last few years. I trust this association will be highly beneficial for all the stakeholders of Nobel Hygiene.”
