Bodycraft is an Indian beauty and wellness chain that combines salons, clinics, and medical aesthetic services under one brand. Singularity AMC has led a ₹120 crore round, giving the company fresh capital after a long gap between major raises. The problem it’s trying to solve is basic but real: most customers still bounce between neighborhood salons, dermatologists, and slimming centers that don’t talk to each other. Founded in 1997 by Manjul Gupta and now run by CEO Sahil Gupta, with Dr. Mikki Singh leading clinical aesthetics, Bodycraft wants to turn that fragmented spend into a single, organized experience.
What is Bodycraft and how does it work?
Bodycraft is India’s first hybrid clinic-salon, and that’s the easiest way to understand the business. A customer can walk in for a haircut or color session, but the same brand also sells dermatologist-led treatments like laser hair reduction and injectables. It also offers skin rejuvenation, hair restoration, body contouring, and wellness services. That blend matters because it shifts Bodycraft out of the old “salon chain” bucket and closer to a recurring personal-care platform.
The workflow is more clinical than a normal beauty chain. For many treatments, the experience starts with a consultation. Then a doctor or trained specialist maps the concern, explains prep and aftercare, and puts the customer into a package or session plan. Bodycraft’s clinic menu now stretches across laser hair reduction and Hydra Medi Facial. It also includes fillers, microneedling, PRP and GFC hair treatments, IV wellness drips, and non-surgical fat reduction options like CoolSculpting and Onda Coolwaves.
Mostly hassle. Instead of figuring out whether to visit a salon, a skin clinic, or a separate weight-management setup, customers can keep those spends inside one system. The company is also talking openly about AI-led efficiencies and has already begun introducing AI-led diagnostics in newer centers. It’s trying to standardize decision-making and customer follow-up as it scales.
There’s also a clear premium play here. This isn’t a mass-market grooming chain built around quick services and discounting. It sells trust and repeat visits. It also sells higher-value procedures — the kind that need trained dermatology talent, devices, tighter protocols, and a brand customers are willing to revisit for months, not just weekends.
Who founded Bodycraft and how did it grow?
The founding story
Manjul Gupta started Bodycraft in 1997 after building skincare expertise in the early 1990s and working with clients in army circles while moving across cities with her family. Bengaluru became the base, and the business began small — first from an apartment setup, then as a formal salon. A few years later, Manjul Gupta and her husband, Dr. Sushil Gupta, pushed the model beyond grooming and into a hybrid format that put salon services and clinic-grade care under one roof.
India’s beauty market has always had demand, but organized chains that could credibly sell both indulgence and medical precision were rare. Bodycraft’s early bet was that customers didn’t want to manage separate relationships for hair, skin, aesthetics, and wellness if one trusted brand could do the lot.
Why this team fits the category
Sahil Gupta didn’t come up through salon operations from day one. He trained as a civil engineer, studied further at IIT Kharagpur, worked as a consultant at Ernst & Young, and later joined the family business. That’s useful here. Bodycraft isn’t just a beauty brand anymore — it’s a multi-city services business that needs process control and rollout discipline. It also needs staffing systems and unit economics that work across owned and franchise locations.
Dr. Mikki Singh brings the medical layer that a lot of lifestyle chains can’t fake. She leads Bodycraft’s aesthetics and dermatology arm, and Sahil Gupta has publicly credited her with building the clinic vertical’s clinical rigor and patient-first approach. In a category where consumer trust can collapse fast, that matters a lot more than fancy interiors.
What Bodycraft has built
The company has had time to mature. This isn’t a 3-year-old startup chasing vanity growth. Bodycraft has been around since 1997, and by June 2026 it operated 67 outlets — 33 clinics and 34 salons — across more than 10 cities, using a mix of COCO and FOFO models. It now plans to add 30 more locations, which tells you management thinks the playbook is ready for a wider rollout.
There are a few execution signals here too. The broader Bodycraft group has expanded into education through Bodycraft Academy, and Swati Gupta has led training initiatives tied to international hair education. That won’t make headlines, but in a service business, training is infrastructure.
The deal and the competition
This round is Bodycraft’s first major fundraising event in nearly 9 years. Back in 2017, it raised ₹18 crore at a pre-money valuation of ₹55 crore. The new ₹120 crore infusion, led by Mumbai-based Singularity AMC, will go into expansion and clinical equipment. It will also fund technology, management and operations, AI-led efficiencies, and customer experience upgrades.
Competition is real, and it’s not just one type of rival. Kaya is the big organized dermatology benchmark, with 94 clinics across 27 Indian cities and a much deeper pure-play skin and hair footprint. Oliva is another direct clinical aesthetics competitor, with 34 clinics in 9 cities. Then there’s VLCC, which plays a broader beauty and wellness game with stronger legacy associations in slimming and wellness. Bodycraft’s difference is that it isn’t trying to be only a skin chain or only a salon network. It’s betting that the hybrid format lifts wallet share and retention.
The incumbent alternative still looks messy. A lot of Indian consumers either visit independent dermatologists for procedures and neighborhood salons for upkeep, or they choose large chains that are strong in one service line but not the full stack. Investors backing Bodycraft are saying the integrated format can win if execution stays tight. It’s a demanding thesis. Service quality slips fast when clinic networks expand too aggressively.
Why does the Bodycraft funding round matter?
After such a long gap between major raises, this capital looks less like routine balance-sheet support and more like an inflection point. Bodycraft has already proved that customers will buy a hybrid beauty-and-clinical experience. What it hasn’t fully proved yet is whether that model can scale nationally without losing trust, consistency, or margins.
The use of funds gives the game away. When a company wants to spend on clinical equipment, management systems, and AI-led efficiencies, it’s telling you the next phase is operational, not just promotional. New centers are expensive. Medical aesthetics is even more expensive. So the round matters because it funds the hard stuff — devices, process, hiring, standardization — not just store openings.
For customers, the upside is obvious if Bodycraft gets this right: more cities and better access to device-led treatments. It could also mean more predictable service quality. For Singularity AMC, the bet is on organized premium consumption with healthcare-like trust layered on top. That’s smarter than it sounds, because people may postpone a luxury haircut, but they’re often far stickier once they enter recurring skin, hair, or aesthetic treatment plans.
How big is India’s clinical aesthetics market?
Bodycraft says India’s clinical aesthetics market could grow from about $2 billion in 2024 to more than $7 billion by 2033. Even if you haircut that optimism a bit, it’s still a big enough number to explain why investors are willing to back organized operators with medical credibility and multi-city ambition.
The trend lines underneath that forecast are clear. Kaya’s FY25 annual report, citing analyst work and expert interviews, pegs FY25-FY29 CAGR at 13.1% for skin treatments, 14.4% for body treatments, and 12.3% for hair treatments in India’s aesthetic services market. That’s not meme-stock growth. It’s steady, category-level expansion across the exact buckets Bodycraft sells into.
Consumer behavior is changing in a way that favors chains over independents. Buyers are more willing to pay for laser, injectables, body contouring, and dermatologist-led maintenance than they were a decade ago. They also want brand safety. In medical aesthetics, “premium” isn’t just about price — it’s about whether a customer trusts the person holding the laser.
Is Bodycraft funding enough for a national push?
It’s enough to matter. Not enough to guarantee anything.
Bodycraft has something most venture-backed consumer brands don’t: age, brand memory, and a service model that already exists beyond a slide deck. That makes the ₹120 crore raise more interesting than the number alone suggests.
Read how Square Yards raised ₹900 crore ($95M) in a debt-and-equity round led by EAAA Alternatives to strengthen its integrated proptech platform ahead of a planned IPO and a potential $1.6B valuation in its next fundraising.
Bodycraft funding FAQ
- What happened in the Bodycraft funding round? Bodycraft raised ₹120 crore, or about $12.6 million, in a round led by Singularity AMC in June 2026. It was the company’s first major fundraise in nearly 9 years, which makes it a reset rather than a small follow-on cheque.
- How does Bodycraft actually work as a business? Bodycraft runs a hybrid model that mixes salons with dermatologist-led clinics and medical aesthetic services. That means the same brand can sell routine beauty services and laser hair reduction. It also offers anti-ageing procedures, hair restoration, body contouring, and wellness treatments instead of operating as just a salon chain.
- Who founded Bodycraft and who runs it today? Manjul Gupta founded Bodycraft in 1997 after building a career in skincare and beauty services. CEO Sahil Gupta now leads the company operationally. He previously worked at Ernst & Young, while Dr. Mikki Singh oversees the clinical aesthetics side of the business.
- Is Bodycraft a salon brand or a clinical aesthetics company? It’s both, and that’s the whole point of the model. Bodycraft sits at the intersection of organized beauty retail and wellness services. It also sits in India’s clinical aesthetics market, which is why it competes differently from pure salon chains and pure dermatology clinic networks like Kaya or Oliva.
