In September 2024, Marico paid up to ₹70 crore ($7.3 million) just to buy out the last 40% of a beauty brand it had already spent three years turning around. That brand was doing barely ₹17.5 crore a year in sales when Marico first walked in.
The name is Just Herbs, an Ayurvedic skin and hair care label built in a home garden in Mohali by a biochemist-turned-formulator, scaled by her son and daughter-in-law, and eventually swallowed whole by one of India’s largest FMCG companies. Revenue grew more than five times in three years under Marico. Full ownership followed. And as of the company’s own most recent disclosure, the brand still has not turned a profit.
Quick facts
| Company | Just Herbs, owned by Apcos Naturals Private Limited |
| Founded | Formulations began around 2002–2004 in a home lab in Mohali; brand launched 2010; company incorporated 19 November 2018 |
| Founder(s) | Dr Neena Chopra (formulations); Arush Chopra and Megha Sabhlok (co-founders who commercialised the brand from 2013) |
| Businesses | Ayurvedic beauty and personal care — skin, hair, bath and body, natural makeup, fragrance and gifting, around 150 formulations |
| Latest FY revenue | ₹98.93 crore (FY25, Apcos Naturals financials) |
| Latest FY profit/loss | Not disclosed in absolute terms; loss-making, yet to reach break-even as of November 2025 (Marico management commentary) |
| Listed | Private — wholly owned subsidiary of Marico Limited, which is listed on the NSE and BSE |
| Market value / last valuation | Not disclosed; Marico paid up to ₹70 crore for the final 40% stake in September 2024 |
| Key shareholders / CEO | 100% Marico Limited (since September 2024); Arush Chopra continues as co-founder and CEO |
What they do
Just Herbs sells Ayurvedic skin care, hair care, bath and body, and natural makeup products, positioned as a premium, ingredient-transparent alternative to both mass-market herbal brands such as Himalaya and Biotique and ultra-luxury Ayurveda houses such as Forest Essentials and Kama Ayurveda. Its buyer is largely the urban, 22–45-year-old woman who wants plant-based formulations but is not willing to trade away efficacy or elegant packaging to get them, a segment the company has described as central to its positioning since its Chandigarh-Mohali retail push began (Indian Retailer, 2024). The company sells through its own website, Amazon, Flipkart and Nykaa, and through more than 500 offline retail touchpoints staffed with dedicated beauty advisors (Inc42, 2024).
The origin
The formulations came first, and the business came much later. Dr Neena Chopra, a biochemist who completed her M.Sc. in 1982, left a career in banking once her children were grown to pursue a long-standing interest in Ayurveda. Around 2002 to 2004, working from a garden laboratory at her home in Mohali, Punjab, she began mixing what she has described simply as “a few basic ubtans, a lotion, and some creams”, with Ministry of AYUSH certification behind the formulations (Yahoo News, feature on the brand’s origin). For years this stayed exactly what it sounds like: a hobby, passed between friends and family who liked the results, in a country where an organised market for natural personal care barely existed.
The shift from hobby to company came in 2013, when her son Arush Chopra and his wife Megha Sabhlok, then building careers in Singapore in finance and media, and in marketing and communications respectively, gave up those jobs and moved back to India to commercialise what Dr Chopra had built (D2C India profile; Indian Retailer, 2024). Just Herbs had technically launched as a brand in 2010, but it was this 2013 relocation that turned a family formulation project into an operating business, with Arush and Megha running strategy, marketing and operations while Dr Chopra continued to lead product development.
The struggle years
The years that followed were not a straight line up. Arush Chopra has described being told directly that starting a natural beauty brand in India was a bad idea, given how crowded and capital-intensive the consumer beauty market already was, and has said the company ran on customer revenue and self-funding for four years before it began to show real traction (TBCY interview with Arush Chopra). Neither founder had a background in digital marketing or e-commerce; both taught themselves Facebook advertising and social media operations from scratch, running the business out of their home alongside Dr Chopra rather than from an office or a funded team (TBCY interview).
The numbers from that period make the grind concrete rather than anecdotal. Apcos Naturals Private Limited, the entity that owns Just Herbs, was formally incorporated only on 19 November 2018 — roughly five years after Arush and Megha had already moved back to India to run it (Tofler company filing). And as late as FY21, more than a decade after the brand’s 2010 launch, Just Herbs was still generating just ₹17.5 crore in annual revenue (Inc42, 2024; Indian Retailer, 2024). A single seed round, of $1.5 million led by Roots Ventures with participation from angel investor Sachit Passi, arrived only in 2019 (Inc42 funding data; Tracxn) — nine years after launch, and the only external capital the company would raise before its acquirer showed up.
The turning point
On 14 July 2021, Marico Limited announced it was acquiring a 60% equity stake in Apcos Naturals Private Limited, the owner of Just Herbs, through a mix of primary capital infusion and secondary buyouts from existing shareholders, to be completed over two years (Business Standard, July 2021; Inc42, July 2021). Marico did not disclose the price it paid. What it did disclose, repeatedly, was intent: Marico’s management framed the deal as one step toward a stated goal of building at least three digital-first brands worth more than ₹100 crore each within three years (Inc42, July 2021; YourStory, July 2021).
The before-and-after is unambiguous, and it is documented in Marico’s own related-party financial disclosures rather than in founder claims. In FY21, the year before the deal, Just Herbs did ₹17.5 crore in revenue. Three fiscal years later, in FY24, that figure had reached ₹96.03 crore — a 5.5x increase, and the basis for the company’s public claim of crossing a ₹100 crore annual revenue run rate around June 2024 (AngelOne, September 2024, citing Marico’s stock exchange filing; Inc42, 2024). No single product launch explains that jump. What changed was distribution: Marico’s balance sheet and retail relationships took a website-first brand into 500-plus stores with trained beauty advisors, while marketplace listings on Amazon, Flipkart and Nykaa added reach the founders could not have self-funded (Inc42, 2024).
The money behind it
Just Herbs raised almost nothing from traditional venture capital before its acquirer arrived, and the ownership structure has moved in one direction since: toward full consolidation inside Marico.
- 2019 seed round: $1.5 million (about ₹10–11 crore at the time), led by Roots Ventures with angel investor Sachit Passi participating — the company’s only outside institutional funding round on record (Inc42 funding data; Tracxn).
- July 2021, 60% stake: Marico Limited acquired majority control of Apcos Naturals via primary infusion plus secondary buyouts over two years; consideration undisclosed (Business Standard, July 2021).
- September 2024, remaining 40% stake: Marico signed a definitive agreement on 6 September 2024 and completed the purchase on 17 September 2024, buying out the founders, directors and other shareholders for an aggregate consideration of up to ₹70 crore, taking its holding to 100% (AngelOne, September 2024; MarketScreener, September 2024).
- October 2025, corporate consolidation: Apcos Naturals Private Limited was voluntarily liquidated, and its entire business undertaking was distributed to Marico on a going-concern basis effective 1 October 2025, with final dissolution pending approval from the National Company Law Tribunal in Chandigarh (ScanX Trade corporate action report, citing Marico’s stock exchange filings).
Total consideration paid by Marico across both tranches has never been disclosed in full; only the 2024 tranche’s up-to-₹70-crore figure is public. No third-party valuation of Just Herbs as a whole has been reported.
How it makes money
Just Herbs earns the way most premium personal care brands do: it sells finished, branded skin and hair products at a retail markup over the cost of formulation, packaging and ingredients, and spends heavily on customer acquisition and retail presentation to protect that premium positioning.
- Revenue in: product sales across skin, hair, bath and body, natural makeup, fragrance and gifting, sold through its own website, marketplaces (Amazon, Flipkart, Nykaa) and offline retail (Inc42, 2024).
- Manufacturing: the company controls its own production, historically running in-house manufacturing out of its Mohali base, which it has said gives it tighter control over formulation quality (Indian Retailer, 2024).
- Costs out: the two largest cost lines for a brand of this shape are typically customer acquisition (digital ads, and now in-store beauty advisor salaries across 500-plus outlets) and trade margin paid to marketplaces and retail partners; neither figure has been separately disclosed for Just Herbs.
- What people get wrong: the brand is often described as a “D2C success story”, but its own numbers show the opposite mix took over after 2021 — growth was driven by Marico’s offline and marketplace distribution, not by the direct-to-consumer channel that built the brand in its first decade (Inc42, 2024; Indian Retailer, 2024).
- Where the margin sits: premium Ayurvedic personal care commands materially higher gross margins than mass-market herbal products because of price points, but Marico’s own commentary confirms that gross margin has not yet translated into net profitability for the brand (Business Standard, November 2025).
The numbers
Apcos Naturals’ revenue, disclosed through Marico’s stock exchange filings and subsequent regulatory financial filings, shows a business that grew rapidly for three years and then slowed sharply in the fourth:
| Fiscal year | Revenue (₹ crore) | YoY growth | Profit / loss |
|---|---|---|---|
| FY21 | 17.5 | — | Not disclosed |
| FY22 | 35.06 | +100.3% | Not disclosed |
| FY23 | 59.25 | +69.0% | Not disclosed |
| FY24 | 96.03 | +62.1% | Not disclosed |
| FY25 | 98.93 | +3.0% | Not disclosed |
- FY21–FY24 revenue: ₹17.5 crore to ₹96.03 crore, roughly 5.5x growth over three years, disclosed in Marico’s related-party transaction filing (AngelOne, September 2024).
- FY25 revenue: ₹98.93 crore, up just 3.0% year-on-year, per company financial filings with the Registrar of Companies (TheCompanyCheck.com, MCA data, accessed September 2026).
- Profit and loss: Apcos Naturals has not publicly disclosed absolute net profit or loss figures. Marico’s own management said in November 2025 that Just Herbs, alongside sister digital brand True Elements, has “not reached break-even” and that the company expects both to do so within the following 18 months (Business Standard, November 2025; BW Marketing World, November 2025).
- Context inside Marico: Just Herbs sits within a digital-first brand portfolio (with Beardo, Plix and True Elements) that collectively crossed ₹1,000 crore in annual recurring revenue by November 2025 — within that group, Beardo is described as near-profitable with double-digit EBITDA and Plix has already reached break-even, leaving Just Herbs and True Elements as the laggards on profitability (YourStory, November 2025; Business Standard, November 2025).
Where the money comes from
Just Herbs does not publicly break out revenue by product category or geography, but the available disclosures point to a clear channel shift rather than a product-mix story:
- Pre-acquisition channel mix (up to 2021): around 85% of revenue came through the brand’s own website over the three years before the Marico deal, with the rest split across early marketplace and offline listings (Indian Retailer, 2024).
- Post-acquisition channel mix: expansion to more than 500 offline retail touchpoints with dedicated beauty advisors, alongside continued sales on Amazon, Flipkart and Nykaa and the original website (Inc42, 2024).
- Order volume: daily order volumes grew from around 100 a day to roughly 5,000 a day between the pre- and post-acquisition periods, an indicator the company has used to describe the scale of its retail and marketplace expansion (Inc42, 2024).
- Product range: the brand grew from 3 SKUs at inception to around 150 formulations across skin, hair, bath and body, natural makeup, fragrance and gifting (Inc42, 2024).
- The surprise: a brand that built its identity on being a direct-to-consumer, crowdsourced label — it ran a Facebook community of 3,000 to 4,000 “Insiders” from 2017 to shape product decisions (Inc42, 2024) — now derives the bulk of its post-2021 growth from offline retail and marketplaces that its own website did not generate on its own.
The risks
- Unresolved profitability: despite 5.5x revenue growth between FY21 and FY24 and full ownership consolidation by September 2024, Just Herbs had still not reached break-even as of Marico’s November 2025 disclosure, with the parent setting an explicit 18-month internal deadline for the brand to get there (Business Standard, November 2025). A brand that cannot convert premium pricing into profit within roughly five years of a well-capitalised parent taking full control faces a structurally harder path to profitability than its revenue growth alone suggests.
- Growth deceleration: revenue growth fell from 62.1% in FY24 to just 3.0% in FY25 (TheCompanyCheck.com, MCA filings), a sharp slowdown that raises the question of whether the retail and marketplace expansion that drove the FY21–FY24 run has largely played out, and whether the next leg of growth requires a different lever entirely.
- Crowded, well-funded competitive set: Just Herbs competes directly against Forest Essentials and Kama Ayurveda at the premium end and Biotique, Vaadi Herbals and other herbal brands at the mass end (Storyboard18; brand comparison coverage), several of which also have large-company or private equity backing, meaning distribution scale alone may not be a durable point of difference.
- Loss of independent corporate identity: the voluntary liquidation of Apcos Naturals Private Limited, completed in October 2025, means the entity the founders built no longer exists as a separate company; Just Herbs is now a brand line inside Marico rather than a standalone business with its own board or reporting (ScanX Trade, October 2025), tying its future entirely to Marico’s capital-allocation priorities across a wider digital brand portfolio competing for the same investment.
The takeaway
Just Herbs spent roughly a decade as a small, self-funded business, run from a home and a single garden laboratory, before it found the distribution muscle to grow at scale. When that muscle arrived, in the form of a large FMCG parent, it did in three years what a decade of founder hustle could not: it took the brand from ₹17.5 crore to ₹96 crore in revenue. But the same three years also show that distribution and profitability are separate problems with separate solutions. A parent’s retail network can put a product in front of far more customers; it cannot, on its own, make the unit economics work. Four years after Marico first bought in, and more than a year after it bought out the founders entirely, Just Herbs is still chasing the break-even point its acquirer once assumed scale alone would deliver.
Frequently asked questions
Who owns Just Herbs now?
Marico Limited owns 100% of the business. It first acquired a 60% stake in July 2021, then bought the remaining 40% from the founders and other shareholders for up to ₹70 crore in a deal completed on 17 September 2024 (AngelOne, September 2024; Business Standard, July 2021).
Who founded Just Herbs?
The formulations were created by Dr Neena Chopra, a biochemist, starting around 2002 to 2004 in a home laboratory in Mohali. Her son Arush Chopra and daughter-in-law Megha Sabhlok commercialised the brand after moving back from Singapore in 2013, and are credited as co-founders (D2C India; Indian Retailer, 2024).
Is Just Herbs profitable?
Not as of the most recent disclosure. Marico’s management said in November 2025 that Just Herbs, along with brand True Elements, had not reached break-even and was expected to do so within 18 months (Business Standard, November 2025).
How much revenue does Just Herbs make?
Apcos Naturals Private Limited, which owns the brand, reported revenue of ₹96.03 crore in FY24 and ₹98.93 crore in FY25, according to company financial filings (AngelOne, September 2024; TheCompanyCheck.com, accessed September 2026).
Did Just Herbs raise venture capital before the Marico deal?
Yes, but only once: a $1.5 million seed round in 2019 led by Roots Ventures, with angel investor Sachit Passi participating. It remains the company’s only outside institutional funding round on record before Marico’s 2021 majority-stake acquisition (Inc42 funding data; Tracxn).
Sources
Figures are as of September 2026. Currency converted at $1 ≈ ₹96.0 as of 18 September 2026 (Trading Economics).
- Business Standard, “Marico acquires 60% stake in Apcos Naturals that owns ‘Just Herbs'”, July 2021
- Inc42, “Marico Acquires Majority Stake In ‘Just Herbs’ Owner Apcos Naturals”, July 2021
- YourStory, “Marico acquires majority stake in Apcos Naturals that owns Just Herbs”, July 2021
- Inc42, “How Just Herbs Grew 5X To Hit INR 100 Cr Revenue Run Rate In 3 Years Post Marico Takeover”, 2024
- Indian Retailer, “How Just Herbs Grew to a Rs 100 Cr+ Annual Revenue Run-rate”, 2024
- AngelOne, “Marico Acquires Apcos Naturals for Beauty Growth”, September 2024
- MarketScreener, “Marico Limited completed the acquisition of remaining 40% stake in Apcos Naturals Private Limited”, September 2024
- ScanX Trade, “Marico Finalizes Internal Restructuring: Apco Naturals Voluntarily Liquidated”, October 2025
- Business Standard, “Marico’s digital brands cross ₹1,000 cr annual recurring revenue mark”, November 2025
- YourStory, “Marico’s digital brands cross Rs 1000 Cr, CEO Saugata Gupta”, November 2025
- BW Marketing World, “Marico’s Digital & Foods Play Cross Rs 1,000 Cr ARR”, November 2025
- TheCompanyCheck.com, Apcos Naturals Private Limited company financial profile (MCA data), accessed September 2026
- Tofler, Apcos Naturals Private Limited company filing summary, accessed September 2026
- Inc42 company funding data / Tracxn, Just Herbs seed funding round, 2019
- Yahoo News, “Made in India: The Story Behind How a Wellness Brand Was Born in a Garden-Lab in Mohali”
- D2C India, founder profile of Arush Chopra, Just Herbs
- TBCY, “Millennial Focused Ayurvedic Brand”, interview with Arush Chopra
- Trading Economics, USD/INR exchange rate, 18 September 2026
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