Brands
K-Beauty favourite Frudia debuts in India via kindlife exclusive launch
MUMBAI: K-beauty lovers in India have a fresh reason to celebrate. Frudia, the cult-favourite Korean skincare brand known for its fruit-based formulas, has officially entered the Indian market through an exclusive partnership with kindlife, the fast-growing beauty and wellness platform loved by India’s Gen Z and millennials.
Derived from the words ‘fruit’ and ‘dia’ (Greek for ‘by’), Frudia blends decades of skincare science with the natural power of fruits. Its signature R Vita W process ensures the integrity of nutrients through low-temperature extraction, offering products packed with antioxidants and skin-reviving ingredients.
Kindlife founder & CEO Radhika Ghai shared her excitement, “Frudia is the OG of fruit-based skincare and resonates with our vision of making global K-beauty essentials easily accessible to India’s trend-conscious youth. This is just the beginning of a fruit-fuelled skincare revolution.”
The exclusive India launch features three hero products,
– Frudia citrus brightening cream (Rs 1,999) infused with citrus extracts for hydration, radiance, and antioxidant protection.
– Frudia blueberry hydrating honey lip balm (Rs 549) deeply nourishing, with a buttery texture that treats dryness.
– Frudia green grape pore control serum (Rs 1,799) lightweight hydration with pore-tightening tannins perfect for oily skin.
With over 1,000 brands and a community of 2.5 million, kindlife continues to shape India’s evolving beauty landscape. As the Korean wave sweeps through skincare trends, this collaboration positions kindlife at the heart of the movement bridging innovation, culture, and conscious beauty.
Brands
Rakesh Menon joins Paytm as avp – lending
Fintech product leader takes on new role after building digital lending, payments and credit products across fintech ecosystem
MUMBAI: Rakesh Menon has joined Paytm as assistant vice president – lending, taking on a new role focused on strengthening the company’s lending and credit products.
Prior to this, Menon worked at Profectus Capital Pvt Ltd as chief manager – payments based financing and digital lending.
At Profectus, he designed and launched digital credit products for merchants with variable cash flows, including overdraft-linked and revenue-share lending models. He led end-to-end LOS–LMS API integrations with payment partners and aggregators, enabling real-time underwriting, disbursal and repayment workflows.
He also worked on funnel optimisation initiatives using journey analytics, improving onboarding, KYC and disbursal conversion by 35 per cent. He developed ecosystem partnerships for transaction-data-based credit assessment and automated settlement systems, and collaborated with credit and data science teams to strengthen risk models and early delinquency detection.
Menon standardised partner onboarding and API frameworks, reducing go-live timelines by 40 per cent and improving digital scalability.
Before Profectus Capital, he worked at PayU as senior manager – presales lead – enterprise business from August 2022 to August 2023. He set up a national presales function for fintech and digital commerce clients, aligning solutions such as EMI, BNPL, BBPS and offer engines to merchant requirements.
He also helped improve conversion rates by around 15 per cent through merchant persona mapping, demo frameworks and structured sales playbooks, working closely with product and go-to-market teams.
From April 2019 to July 2022, Menon served as business unit head – SMB – direct acquisitions at Worldline, where he built the SMB online payments vertical from scratch. The business scaled to Rs 2,500 crore in annual transaction volume, growing at 45 per cent year-on-year.
During this period, he introduced paperless onboarding processes including eKYC and eSign, developed partner dashboards and CRM automation systems, and integrated platforms such as Shopify, WooCommerce and Tally to expand merchant adoption.
Across roles, Menon has worked across digital lending, payments and merchant financing, with experience in product development, ecosystem partnerships, API integrations and fintech-led growth strategies.
At Paytm, he will focus on scaling lending products and strengthening digital credit infrastructure within the company’s financial services ecosystem.
His appointment comes as fintech firms continue to expand their lending and embedded finance offerings in a competitive market.
