India’s beauty industry is becoming increasingly competitive, but Soundous Moufakir believes the next phase of growth will be shaped by consumers who know more about ingredients, formulations and their individual skincare needs. For the Splitsvilla winner, The Traitors 2 contestant and founder of MoroMaa, that shift presents an opportunity to build a brand around Moroccan beauty traditions.
Moufakir did not set out to launch a beauty brand simply because she saw a gap in the market. Her idea came from a personal experience: trying to find authentic Moroccan beauty products after moving to Asia.
Having lived in France, where Moroccan products and beauty rituals were relatively accessible, she was accustomed to using ingredients and products rooted in Moroccan traditions. After moving to Asia, however, she found that although Moroccan products were available, she was not always convinced of their authenticity.
That experience eventually inspired MoroMaa, a beauty, lifestyle and body-care brand launched in India on June 27, 2026. The company has reported early traction, selling out two products within its first few months. It has also raised ₹1.5 crore from Aviral Bhatnagar of AJ VC in exchange for a 9% equity stake.
Moufakir, who holds an MBA in Finance and continues to work in entertainment, leads the company as its founder and CEO. Her ambition goes beyond entering India’s crowded beauty market: she wants to establish a distinct space for what she calls “M Beauty”, or Moroccan Beauty.
The Indian beauty consumer is becoming more informed
For Moufakir, the biggest change in India’s beauty industry is not just its growth but the way consumers approach purchasing decisions. She believes shoppers are increasingly looking beyond celebrity endorsements and paying closer attention to ingredients, formulations and their own skincare needs.
“The Indian beauty market is currently marketed around ₹1,230 billion, and it will go to around ₹4,000-4,500 billion by the next five to 10 years. So it’s gonna get crowded, but the beauty of it is we are engaging into a very smart and smarter, smarter audience who is not any more buying product because of a public face, which is the face of that brand,” she says.
According to Moufakir, this more informed consumer is also raising expectations for beauty companies. Brands must invest in research and development, create effective formulations and understand how products fit into different skin types and routines.
“They understand ingredient, they understand formulation. They understand their skin type. They understand their cycle and which kind of product they need to use at each cycle, and that just pushes us as founders and as CEOs and business people to actually focus more on the R&D part, the formulation part, and at the same time the packaging that can be convenient,” she explains.
However, efficacy alone may not be enough to win customers. Moufakir points to the role of convenience, product design and social media in shaping purchasing behaviour. Consumers want products that deliver results, but they also expect packaging and presentation that appeal to them.
“Right now, if you go to the US, the market of TikTok is in billions because people purchase by attention, but at the same time, they’re looking for convenience stuff. They’re looking for a good product, but they don’t want it to look bad. They want it to look cool and good, and they are not giving up on that aesthetic part,” she says.
For beauty founders, this creates a balancing act: developing products that work while making them convenient and visually appealing enough to attract customers.
“I think there will be a lot of competition in terms of how can you make a good, effective product, but at the same time, very convenient and very appealing to people to purchase,” she adds.
What investors saw in MoroMaa
MoroMaa’s ₹1.5 crore investment from AJ VC comes as the brand begins building its presence in the market. Moufakir says the investment decision reflects two important questions: whether a company solves a genuine problem and whether it offers something distinct from existing products.
Speaking to Hindustan Times, she explains that investors assess whether a business is addressing an unmet need and filling a gap in the market.
“If I speak from an investor point of view, it’s very easy to understand which company, easy not easy, but at least you filter it. You can filter the 100,000 applications to at least find the ones that you’re not sure about. And that goes to, does this person who’s creating this company solve a real problem? And while solving that problem, are they also offering something which is not there in the market? So is there any white space in the market that this company is filling?” she says.
The founder’s capabilities also matter, particularly when a startup is still at an early stage. Moufakir believes that even a promising idea needs the right person to turn it into a sustainable business.
“Once the operational part is discussed with the investor, I think the second thing that they look at is the founder. I believe that any idea can actually get into a big company, but it also depends on the founder and who is behind it, how they think, do they have the right skills to be able to fit into the entrepreneurship skin. Not everyone can actually be an entrepreneur,” she adds.
For MoroMaa, the funding is intended to support the next stage of development. Moufakir plans to use the capital for product development, manufacturing, customer acquisition, distribution and team-building.
“At least from my end, it’s more considered as a seed fund. I just started the company. I need someone to help me scale to a larger audience because that needs a lot of money. Sometimes you cannot just… There are a lot of things that happen, but like website is there, manufacturing is there, operational is there. Having the right people is very important because you are the founder, you have the bigger vision, but then the execution and the other brains that bring all that vision together is the team,” she says.
Building that team, however, presents its own challenges. Early-stage companies often compete for experienced professionals while operating with limited budgets. Moufakir says attracting skilled employees can be difficult when candidates expect salaries that a young business may not yet be able to afford.
“It’s very difficult to attract good brains and good profiles, because those people, they know their worth, so they ask for good salaries, and you cannot afford it at an early stage if you don’t have good funds in your bank account,” she says.
Why Soundous Moufakir decided to go solo
Moufakir did not initially expect to build MoroMaa without a co-founder. She considered bringing someone on board but struggled to find a potential partner who matched the profile she had in mind. Eventually, she decided to take on both the founder and CEO roles herself.
“In the beginning of starting MoroMaa, I was thinking, ‘Oh my God, I need a co-founder.’ Then I was talking to people, but nobody fit that profile that I wanted to partner with. Then I had no choice but just jumping into it and being the founder, at the same time the CEO,” she says.
Running the company has required her to balance the creative aspects of brand-building with the operational and financial decisions that determine whether a business can grow sustainably.
While her entertainment background informs her approach to creative direction, positioning and branding, she says understanding the company’s economics is equally important.
“As equally as I’m concerned by the creative side of MoroMaa, and then the positioning of it, and the branding of it, I’m also concerned about the operation part because that’s what brings our company together. The unit economics are something that are very important that each person needs to focus on because that’s what makes the business scalable and what makes it profitable,” she explains.
The prospect of leading both sides of the business initially felt intimidating. Still, Moufakir chose to begin independently and leave open the possibility of hiring an executive or bringing in a co-founder later.
“I was really scared to have that gap and that position of the founder, but at the same time the CEO, and I just did it. I was like, I’ll figure out the first model, the second one if I need to hire someone or I need to have a co-founder,” she says.
Looking back, she believes the experience of building the business herself has helped her understand its moving parts before considering another founder.
“I think this is the best idea, that I didn’t get anyone on board yet, because as a founder at that early stage, it helps me understand my business. It helps me understand my unit economics. It helped me understand operations, supply chain, advertisement, communication, my packaging, my vendors, negotiation, explore the import, the taxing part, like everything. I am on the top of it,” she says.
For Moufakir, that hands-on involvement is part of learning what it takes to build MoroMaa into a scalable business. As competition in India’s beauty market intensifies, the brand’s challenge will be to translate its Moroccan beauty positioning into products that consumers trust, want to use and are willing to buy again.
