Mohit Yadav: From CA Gold Medallist to Minimalist Co-Founder
He built a skincare brand around transparency instead of hype, sold 90.5% of it to HUL, and then joined Shark Tank India to back the next generation of founders.
Some founders build consumer brands through aggressive marketing. Mohit Yadav took a different route: build the product first, explain what’s inside it, and let the results speak.
That philosophy became the foundation of Minimalist, the science-led skincare brand Mohit co-founded with his brother Rahul Yadav in 2020. Within 5 years, the company had grown into a business generating hundreds of crores in annual revenue, attracted the attention of Hindustan Unilever, and became the subject of one of India’s most closely watched D2C beauty acquisitions.
At a Glance
- Education: B.Com, University of Rajasthan; Chartered Accountant, All-India Rank 26, ICAI gold medallist
- Early career: Deloitte (Assistant Manager); Credit Suisse (Assistant Vice President, ~5 years)
- Ventures: Scopial/MangoStreet, CarDekho, Oto.com, Freewill, Minimalist
- Now: Co-Founder, Minimalist; Shark, Shark Tank India Season 5
- Milestone: HUL acquired 90.5% of Minimalist’s parent, April 2025
A Gold Medallist Who Started With Finance
Mohit Yadav’s professional foundation was built around finance. He holds a B.Com from the University of Rajasthan and qualified as a Chartered Accountant, securing All-India Rank 26 in the CA examination and earning a gold medal from ICAI.
He began his career at Deloitte, working as an Assistant Manager in audit and financial advisory, then moved to Credit Suisse, where he spent roughly five years as an Assistant Vice President. The experience gave him exposure to financial analysis, corporate transactions and international markets, skills that would later prove useful as he moved from finance into entrepreneurship.
Early Ventures: From T-Shirts to Kidswear to Cars
Mohit’s entrepreneurial journey began well before Minimalist. His early venture started as Scopial.com, a creative T-shirt business built around a community of designers, which evolved into MangoStreet, an online platform for branded kidswear. MangoStreet was later acquired by Hushbabies.com, giving Mohit an early entrepreneurial exit and a first look at the realities of building a consumer internet business.
In 2013 he joined CarDekho as Vice President, later leading Oto.com, an automotive marketplace associated with CarDekho and Indonesian media company Emtek. The role broadened his experience into consumer technology, online marketplaces and international business, a combination of finance, technology and consumer businesses that would recur throughout his career.
Freewill: The First Step Into Personalised Beauty
In 2018, Mohit co-founded Freewill, a personalised haircare company built around data, customisation and individual consumer needs. Freewill was backed by Sequoia Capital’s Surge accelerator, now part of Peak XV Partners. It was an early attempt to bring technology and personalisation into India’s beauty market, and it gave Mohit and Rahul experience in building a beauty business before the venture that would define their careers.
Minimalist: A Beauty Brand Built Around Transparency
In 2020, Mohit and Rahul launched Minimalist on a simple idea: skincare products should be easier to understand. Instead of relying on vague beauty claims, Minimalist positioned itself around ingredient transparency, research-backed formulations and simplified product communication. Rahul’s chemistry background complemented Mohit’s business and finance experience, giving the brothers different but complementary roles in building the company.
The strategy resonated with India’s increasingly ingredient-conscious skincare consumer. By FY24, Minimalist had reached approximately ₹347 crore in revenue and reported a profit of ₹10.83 crore, transforming it from a young D2C startup into a significant player in India’s beauty market.
The HUL Acquisition
Minimalist’s biggest corporate milestone arrived in 2025. In January, Hindustan Unilever announced an agreement to acquire a 90.5% stake in Uprising Science, the company behind Minimalist, at a stated pre-money enterprise value of ₹2,955 crore. HUL completed the deal on April 21, 2025, investing approximately ₹2,706.44 crore for the stake, with the founders retaining the remaining 9.5% and a path for HUL to acquire that balance over roughly two years. HUL indicated the Minimalist leadership team, including Mohit and Rahul, would continue running the business.
Growth Under HUL
- ₹514.8 crore: FY25 revenue from operations
- ₹690.2 crore: FY26 revenue, up approximately 36% year-on-year
- ₹25.9 crore: FY26 profit after tax
The acquisition did not mark the end of Minimalist’s growth. FY25’s reported loss varies by source: contemporary reporting showed a ₹31.5 crore net loss after exceptional items, while later FY26 comparative statements reported a ₹270.5 crore FY25 loss, largely reflecting a ₹283.8 crore exceptional fair-value adjustment tied to compulsorily convertible preference shares. The two figures come from different reporting periods and accounting treatments, not competing estimates of the same number.
HUL management has also pointed to an annual revenue run-rate crossing ₹850 crore — a run-rate rather than an audited FY26 figure.
From Founder to Shark
In 2026, Mohit added another title to his entrepreneurial résumé, joining the expanded panel of Shark Tank India Season 5. He brings the perspective of a founder who has moved through several stages of building a consumer business, from early experimentation and personalised beauty to scaling a D2C brand and completing a major strategic transaction.
His investing interests extend beyond Minimalist: investor-profile sources report an investment of ₹148.6 crore in men’s wellness company Bold Care. Since that figure comes from secondary investor-profile reporting rather than a company filing, it’s best treated as attributed rather than independently verified.
What Is Mohit Yadav’s Net Worth?
Mohit Yadav’s personal net worth has not been publicly disclosed through a reliable primary source. This distinction matters because figures from the HUL transaction are sometimes mistakenly presented online as his personal wealth — the ₹2,955 crore figure is the business’s pre-money enterprise value, not what Mohit personally holds. Without verified details of his stake, proceeds, taxes, other investments and liabilities, any specific net-worth number would be speculative.
Career at a Glance
| Stage | Company / Venture | Role or Milestone |
| Finance | Deloitte | Assistant Manager |
| Banking | Credit Suisse | Assistant Vice President |
| Early entrepreneurship | Scopial / MangoStreet | Founder |
| Consumer tech | CarDekho | Vice President |
| Automotive tech | Oto.com | CEO |
| Personalised beauty | Freewill | Co-founder |
| D2C beauty | Minimalist | Co-founder |
| Strategic transaction | HUL / Uprising Science | 90.5% acquisition |
| Television | Shark Tank India | Season 5 Shark |
What Comes Next
Mohit Yadav’s story so far is less about a single breakout moment and more about a steady accumulation of experience such as finance, early-stage internet businesses, marketplaces, personalised beauty, and finally a D2C brand disciplined enough to attract one of the world’s largest consumer-goods companies.