The Estée Lauder Companies, Nykaa & Startup India Announce Finalists for BEAUTY&YOU India 2026

14 of India's most promising beauty founders and innovators named finalists in the country's leading beauty entrepreneurship program.

MUMBAI, INDIA - Friday, October 9, 2026 - The Estée Lauder Companies, in partnership with Nykaa and Startup India, an initiative of the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), today announced the finalists for BEAUTY&YOU India 2026, the country's leading program to discover and support the next generation of Indian beauty entrepreneurs.

Now in its fifth year, BEAUTY&YOU India underscores The Estée Lauder Companies' long-term commitment to discovering, nurturing, and accelerating India's next generation of beauty entrepreneurs. Since launching BEAUTY&YOU India in 2022, The Estée Lauder Companies has helped founders build and scale their businesses through funding, mentorship, access to global industry expertise and strategic opportunities - supporting the innovators shaping the future of beauty in one of the world's most dynamic markets. The program's continued collaboration with Startup India, DPIIT, a flagship initiative of the Government of India, reflects a shared focus on advancing Indian entrepreneurship and creating greater opportunities for women founders.

Following a competitive application process, 14 finalists were selected across four award categories: GROW for in-market beauty brands; IMAGINE for early-stage beauty concepts; a new DESIGN category for creative talent reimagining beauty; and BREAKTHROUGH for innovation. This year, the BREAKTHROUGH category is presented in partnership with The Estée Lauder Companies' Fragrance Atelier in Paris, the company's global innovation hub dedicated to fragrance expertise, advanced technologies, and cutting-edge capabilities. This award recognizes India's long legacy of fragrance craftsmanship, connecting Indian innovators with The Estée Lauder Companies' fragrance expertise and ecosystem.

Together, the finalists reflect many of the trends redefining beauty and the breadth of innovation emerging becoming available to India's diverse beauty consumers - from high-performance skin and hair care tailored to Indian consumers and climates to new technologies transforming how fragrance and active ingredients are created, formulated, and delivered.

The 2026 BEAUTY&YOU India finalists are:

GROW: Best in-market beauty brands

• 3TENX - Ankith Aroraa, Founder & CEO, and Megha Arora, Co-Founder: A professional hair care brand combining advanced science, professional expertise, and unique formulation technology to create high-performance solutions designed for Indian hair.
• Laani - Nirja Bhatt, Founder & CEO: High-performance sweat and odor control products created for Indian heat, humidity, and skin, led by a water-based clear deodorant stick that dries instantly, leaves no residue, and addresses underarm pigmentation.
• The Curl Co. - Rutvika Charegaonkar and Isha Mahabal, Co-Founders: An affordable textured haircare brand creating simple, one-and-done products designed specifically for Indian curl and wave patterns and climate.

IMAGINE: Best early-stage beauty concepts

• Hyeglo Beauty - Kanupriya Ahluwalia, Founder: A makeup-meets-skincare brand built around "beauty as care, not cover," with products that combine makeup with active ingredients at stated concentrations.
• Neothera - Radhika Agarwal, Founder & CEO: An eight-week acne care program that combines clinically tested skincare with nutrition, lifestyle, and ongoing guidance to address the underlying factors behind persistent acne.
• Boldpurity - Khatija Shabana, CEO, and Syed Mohammad Fouzan, Director: A scientist-led skincare concept developing proprietary technologies to improve how proven ingredients are formulated, delivered and perform on skin.
• Evove - Karan Galhotra and Aditi Mittal, Co-Founders: A skincare brand built for Indian women navigating the hormonal shift from pre- to post-menopause, when multiple visible skin changes can occur together.

BREAKTHROUGH: Best innovation in fragrance

• Ananthara Biotech - Ananth Krishna Narayanan, Founder & Managing Director, and K.K. Narayanan, Director: Uses bio-engineered yeast to produce high-value aroma molecules, offering an alternative to traditionally sourced fragrance ingredients with expertise focused on santalols.
• Goyam Green Tech - Ajaykumar Mehta, Shriya Rambhia and Dheer Rambhia, Directors: Uses advanced chemistry, catalysis, and continuous-flow technologies to create greener alternatives for fragrance ingredients, including solutions derived from glycerol bio-waste.
• BABOSKI - Hetali Kamdar, Founder: Developing a biodegradable, skin-responsive delivery platform designed to protect and progressively release fragrance and functional actives for longer-lasting performance.
• La SerentiQa Innovations - Abhay Panchal and Hardik Patel, Co-Founders: Developing a biomimetic delivery platform that uses multiple carrier systems to improve the targeted delivery of cosmetic actives.

DESIGN: Creative talent with the potential to shape a meaningful collaboration with an Estée Lauder Companies' brand

• De Icebreaker Creative Studio - Pankti Sheth, Founder & Creative Director: A packaging and brand design studio that transforms strategy into tangible experiences, creating culturally aware and commercially relevant design for brands across consumer categories.
• Guerrilla Art & Design Pvt. Ltd. - Rutva Trivedi, Design Director and Co-founder and Arjun Bhal, Managing Director: A multidisciplinary design studio working across packaging, illustration and spatial design, with an interest in Indian craft and visual culture, including Warli art and hand-painted street typography.
• Rhevan - Vanshika Pherwani and Rhea Pherwani, Co-Founders: A craft-led beauty concept reimagining beauty through Indian artistry, bringing traditional techniques and artisan-made objects into contemporary beauty experiences.

A fifth honor, the Visionary Women's Award, presented in partnership with Startup India, DPIIT will be announced during the final event. Inspired by The Estée Lauder Companies' legacy as a company founded by a trailblazing woman, the award will recognize an outstanding woman entrepreneur whose leadership is creating meaningful impact in her community.

Finalists across all awards categories will present their businesses and ideas to a distinguished panel of judges in Mumbai before winners are announced the next evening at the BEAUTY&YOU India 2026 Awards.

This year's jury panel is composed of experts across The Estée Lauder Companies including Akhil Shrivastava (Executive Vice President & Chief Financial Officer), Aude Gandon (Chief Digital & Marketing Officer), René Lammers (Executive Vice President & Chief Research & Innovation Officer), Nadine Graf (President, EUKEM - Europe, UK&I, and Emerging Markets), Rohan Vaziralli (General Manager, The Estée Lauder Companies India), Sumit Bhasin (Senior Vice President, Global R&D and Innovation for Fragrance, Makeup, and External Partnerships), and Samrath Bedi (Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer, Forest Essentials).

They will be joined by industry leaders including Anchit Nayar (Executive Director & CEO, Nykaa Beauty), Ankita Pandey (Director, Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises), Katrina Kaif (Global Icon, Acclaimed Actor and Beauty Entrepreneur), Gaurav Gupta (Couturier, Artist and Designer), Masaba Gupta (Designer, Entrepreneur and Actor), Gianandrea Ferrari (Chief Commercial Officer, Intercos Group), Jaffrey Zaman (CEO & Managing Director, Intercos India), Ragini Das (Head, Google for Startups India), Jaishree Sharad (Cosmetic Dermatologist, Author and TEDx Speaker) and Dr. Madhuri Agarwal (Consultant Dermatologist and Founder).

Winners will receive financial support from a prize pool of up to $500,000, alongside mentorship, distribution support, and strategic opportunities through The Estée Lauder Companies, Nykaa, and Startup India, helping accelerate their next stage of growth.

For more information, visit www.beautyandyouawards.com.

About The Estée Lauder Companies

The Estée Lauder Companies Inc. is one of the world's leading manufacturers, marketers and sellers of quality skin care, makeup, fragrance and hair care products, and is a steward of luxury and prestige brands globally. The Company's products are sold in approximately 150 countries and territories under brand names including: Estée Lauder, Aramis, Clinique, Lab Series, Origins, M·A·C, La Mer, Bobbi Brown Cosmetics, Aveda, Jo Malone London, Bumble and bumble, Darphin Paris, TOM FORD, Smashbox, AERIN Beauty, Le Labo, Editions de Parfums Frédéric Malle, GLAMGLOW, KILIAN PARIS, Too Faced, Dr.Jart+, the DECIEM family of brands, including The Ordinary, NIOD, Avestan and Loopha, and Balmain Beauty.