Nykaa hires ex-Instamart COO to run 30-minute beauty delivery

Nykaa has hired Ankit Jain, until recently chief operating officer at Swiggy Instamart, to run Nykaa Now, its 30 to 60 minute beauty and personal care delivery service. Jain has spent about two decades in supply chain, logistics and operations, with earlier stints at Flipkart and Unilever.

Nykaa Now is live in 13 cities including Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru and Kolkata, carrying beauty, personal care and wellness assortment. Jain will own expansion, supply chain, fulfilment infrastructure and the logistics technology stack.

The hire matters more than the title. Nykaa is not trying to become a grocery platform. It is defending category authority against horizontal quick commerce apps that have been adding shampoo, deodorant and entry skincare at speed and pulling impulse beauty demand away from Nykaa’s own app. Bringing in someone who ran dark store operations at scale signals that Nykaa intends to compete on availability, not just assortment depth.

For brands selling on Nykaa, three practical consequences. First, expect a tighter, faster-moving assortment inside Nykaa Now than on the main marketplace, which means pack size and price point decisions get made for you if you are not in the conversation. Second, fill rate and lead time will start being measured the way quick commerce measures them, not the way ecommerce does. Third, Nykaa’s owned brands, including Kay Beauty, Nykaa Cosmetics and Dot and Key, sit inside the same buying organisation, so shelf competition is internal as well as external.

Nykaa also operated 324 physical stores as of mid-2026, giving it forward inventory positions that pure app players do not have.