Mensa Brands has raised $40 million with a combination of debt facility and convertible investment for building its portfolio across technology, operations, and marketing functions, the company said in a statement on Thursday.
Mensa Brands turned unicorn a few months ago after its launch with a $135 million fundraise in November 2021. In total, the firm has raised upwards of $200 million in equity from global investors including Accel, Tiger Global, Norwest Venture Partners, and Alpha Wave Global (erstwhile Falcon Edge Capital).
The company founded by Ananth Narayanan raised Rs 300 crore in debt from TradeCred, a Mumbai-based alternative debt platform in February. “In the last two years, we have profitably scaled more than 20 brands across beauty and FMCG, fashion, home, and consumer electronics. We plan to deploy this new funding to propel development of consumer-loved brands for the next generation of India,” Narayanan said in a statement.
Mensa Brands Eyes to Expand Asian Market Footprints
Narayanan was previously the CEO of Myntra Jabong and Co-founder of Medlife.com. Rahul Shah, Partner at EvolutionX Debt Capital, stated, “Mensa has proven its execution capabilities with the successful acquisition of multiple brands, and we look forward to supporting the company’s journey as it continues to grow its brands both in domestic and international markets. With this investment, we continue our strategy to invest in category-leading growth stage tech companies in Asia.”
Mensa has a portfolio nearing 20 brands including iDiva, Dennis Lingo, and Pebble—logged a revenue of $41.2 million (~Rs 310 crore) in its first year of operations in FY22. The house of brands company is banking on offline presence as the dealbreaker for its portfolio of brands. According to him, offline retail is the natural progression for direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands beyond the Rs 150 crore run rate. In August, Mensa forayed into the UAE ecommerce landscape with the launch of Villain, Pebble and Folkulture on Amazon UAE and ecommerce platform noon.
The funding was raised from EvolutionX Debt Capital, a leading debt financing platform for growth-stage companies. EvolutionX Debt Capital—founded by DBS and Temasek—invests in technology-enabled companies across Asia with a special focus on India, China, and Southeast Asia.
