Founder, VLCC | Founded 1989 | New Delhi
In 1989, a 30-year-old housewife from south Delhi borrowed ₹3 lakh and bought a beauty parlour that was losing money. Thirty-four years later, one of the world’s largest private equity firms bought a majority stake in the company that parlour became. Between those two moments sits the story of Vandana Luthra, and of how a country that had no word for “wellness” learned to use one.
A Delhi childhood in a house that cared about other people
Vandana Luthra was born in New Delhi in July 1959, according to The Global Indian. She grew up in a service-class household in Greater Kailash, in south Delhi, Outlook Business reported. Her father, Ram Arora, was a mechanical engineer who worked for a German multinational and travelled a great deal, so the family saw little of him. She later said that watching that life made her want a business of her own rather than a salaried job. “I wanted to do something where I could make money,” she told Outlook Business in 2015.
Her mother, Kamini, was an Ayurvedic doctor who founded the Amar Jyoti Charitable Trust, which educates children with and without disabilities side by side. YourStory reported that her parents once invited children from a nearby slum into their home to watch the family’s first television. Vandana has credited her mother’s work with shaping her interest in making people feel better. “I loved the idea of impacting someone’s life and making things better for them,” she told YourStory.
She went to Mater Dei School and then to Lady Shri Ram College, graduating in 1979. Outlook Business reported that her degree was in psychology.
A love marriage and the quiet years
At 21 she married Mukesh Luthra. It was a love marriage, and it joined two very different families. “I took a decision on my own when it came to getting married,” she told Outlook Business, adding that her parents “were worried that our marriage wouldn’t last more than a year”. She moved into a conservative household whose family business was blankets. YourStory reported that it took her about three years to win her in-laws over.
For several years she was a housewife. Her first daughter was born about a year after the wedding and her second three years later. But she was also studying. She trained in nutrition science and cosmetology in India, then took courses abroad. Outlook Business lists London, Paris and Munich; The Global Indian names Karlsruhe in Germany. She kept going back to Germany for more training, because, as she told Outlook Business, “I wanted to start when I was fully ready.”
What she had seen in Europe was an idea that barely existed in India at the time: that a person’s appearance, weight, skin and health could be looked after in one place, with doctors and nutritionists working alongside beauticians.
Three lakh rupees and a failing parlour
In 1989, aged 30, she took a ₹3 lakh loan and bought a loss-making beauty parlour in Safdarjung, south Delhi, Outlook Business reported. She named it Vandana Luthra Curls and Curves, or VLCC. Her husband offered to fund her; she said no. “I was adamant that I would not take money from anyone,” she told YourStory.
The Global Indian reported that the financiers she approached were apprehensive, and some thought a centre combining beauty, wellness and weight management for both men and women under one roof was too futuristic for Delhi.
The early results proved otherwise. YourStory reported that the centre broke even in its first month. Outlook Business reported that her first weight-loss packages sold out within a month, and that she and a small team worked overtime to keep up. She repaid the ₹3 lakh within eight months.
It came at a cost at home. She left her three-year-old daughter with family to go to work, and she had to bring both her husband and her in-laws round to the idea. “I owe my success to my in-laws, who raised my kids when I was not there,” she told Outlook Business.
The fight to be taken seriously
The harder problem was not money but perception. “When I started, there were hardly any women entrepreneurs. It was a male-dominated environment,” she told YourStory. Many people saw her as simply running a parlour; she told Outlook Business that people “used to look at me with a ‘beauty parlour-waali’ kind of mindset.”
Doctors were the most sceptical. Vandana had decided from the start that VLCC would work with medical professionals and would not be sold as glamour. “From day one I was clear that the brand would not be a glamorous one,” she told YourStory. Convincing the medical community took years. “It took me a good five to six years to convince the medical fraternity to understand that wellness was a larger domain,” she said. By 2015, she told Outlook Business, 60% of VLCC’s clients were being referred by doctors.
From one centre to many countries
The second centre opened about a year and a half after the first. By 1993 VLCC had ten, and Mukesh Luthra had joined the business, Outlook Business reported. The model stayed the same: skincare, nutrition and weight loss together, with products clients could continue using at home after a treatment.
VLCC went abroad in 2005, opening its first overseas centre in Dubai, according to YourStory. Over the following decade it spread across South Asia, Southeast Asia, the Gulf and East Africa. It built manufacturing units in Haridwar and Singapore, set up its own research centres, and opened a network of training institutes for beauty and nutrition professionals.
By 2015, Outlook Business reported, VLCC had about 6,000 employees, 123 company-owned centres and 60 franchises, and roughly 60% of its workforce was women. That year she was ranked 33rd among the most powerful women in business by Fortune India. Two years earlier, in 2013, the Government of India had awarded her the Padma Shri for her contribution to trade and industry. In 2014 she became the first chairperson of the Beauty and Wellness Sector Skill Council, which trains workers under the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana.
Three attempts at the stock market
Growth brought the question of listing. In 2015, Outlook Business reported, VLCC filed a prospectus with Sebi to raise ₹400 crore for expansion. The company did not go ahead. Swarajya reported that VLCC dropped a listing plan on its bankers’ advice and abandoned another attempt in 2017.
In August 2021 it filed again, for a fresh issue of ₹300 crore plus a sale of shares by promoters and investors. The timing was difficult. Swarajya reported that revenues had fallen for two years as Covid-19 lockdowns shut clinics and disrupted supply chains, although the company had generated positive cash flows and used them to reduce debt. At the time, VLCC ran 191 clinics in 106 Indian cities, 25 more abroad, and 94 training institutes, and its personal care products were sold through about 1.1 lakh retail outlets.
That listing did not happen either.
The Carlyle deal and where things stand
In January 2023, the Carlyle Group announced that it had acquired a majority stake in VLCC. Carlyle did not disclose the terms; Venture Intelligence estimated the deal at about $300 million. Carlyle said Vandana and Mukesh Luthra would continue to hold a significant stake. At the time VLCC operated 210 clinics in 118 cities across 11 countries in South Asia, the Middle East and Africa, Business Standard reported.
Outside VLCC, Vandana remains patron of the trust her mother founded, which runs schools for more than 800 children, and vice-chairperson of the NGO Khushii, according to The Global Indian. She has written two books on wellness and fitness. In 2015 she told Outlook Business that her daughters were not in the business and that she was not worried about succession: “I am a very hard taskmaster; my kids will have to learn from scratch.”
She once summed herself up for The Global Indian in a single line: “By nature, I am a restless person.”
Founder Journeys is a Sakhi Sangini series telling the stories of women who built businesses in India. This story is based on public interviews and reporting.
Sources: Outlook Business (November 2015); YourStory (March 2016); Business Standard (January 2023); The Global Indian (October 2021); Swarajya (August 2021); Venture Intelligence (January 2023).
