Ananth Narayanan-led Mensa Brands invests in 10 fashion and beauty brands

Over the next three years, Mensa will acquire over 50 brands across categories including home, garden, apparel, personal care, and beauty

Mensa Brands, a technology-led ‘House of Brands’ built for the e-commerce industry, has partnered with 10 digital-first businesses. Founded by former Myntra and Medlife CEO Ananth Narayanan,  Mensa has invested in ten brands across fashion, home and beauty and the Founders and their teams will become part of Mensa.

Mensa's vision is to partner and invest in digital-first brands and scale them exponentially. Over the next 3 years, Mensa will acquire over 50 brands across categories including home, garden, apparel, personal care, and beauty.

“We are excited to announce our partnership with ten remarkable founding teams that have created beloved digital brands,” said Ananth Narayanan, founder and CEO of Mensa Brands. “We are committed to propelling their journey forward and working together to build global breakout brands from India. At Mensa, we are passionate about using technology to build digital brands that are rooted in bringing joy to our customers.”

The partner brands include Karagiri, a one-stop destination for high-end, designer sarees for women and is based out of Pune.

“We are thrilled about building a digital-first saree brand out of India,” said  Karagiri’s Founder, Pallavi Mohadikar Patwari. “We believe that the Mensa team is best positioned to help us with this journey. The process of the partnership was fair, fast and founder-friendly.”

Priyaasi, a traditional and contemporary jewellery brand from Delhi boasts of traditional artwork and materials in modern designs, making it relevant for all occasions;

There is Dennis Lingo, a men’s casual wear brand from Mumbai that is a leading player in shirts on Indian marketplaces. Ishin, a women’s ethnic wear brand from Mumbai, is known for its range of traditional as well as fusion Indian clothes collections, such as kurtas, kurtis, sarees, drapes and accessories.

“Over the past couple of months working with Mensa we have already started increasing our sales by working together on growth, supply chain and marketing, leveraging working capital, data, technology and the team’s e-commerce experience,” said Charu Agarwal, founder of Ishin.

Hubberholme, an affordable men’s casualwear brand from Delhi, focuses on high street style fashion and athleisure. Anubhutee, a women’s ethnic wear brand from Jaipur, is known for its high quality, stylish and traditional designs, handcrafted to suit consumer sensibilities and aspirations.

Helea, a smart home-device company from Mumbai, is focussing on improving lives through innovative and affordable IoT (Internet of Things) products with a mission to make life easier, safer and greener for a better tomorrow.

There is also Villain, a men’s personal care company from Ahmedabad, that offers a range of fragrances, apparels, and accessories, including sunglasses and gym wear. Ashutosh Valani, co-founder of Villain (who has previously founded the men’s grooming company, Beardo) said the firm will work together to build Villain into a household-name lifestyle brand for men across India.

Mensa partners with brands that have revenue between $1 million and $10 million. It targets digital-first brands operating in different categories, including fashion and apparel, home and garden, beauty and personal care, food, and others. We are fast and founder-friendly and close end-to-end acquisitions within 4-6 weeks. Mensa believes that e-commerce in India is at the inflection point of non-linear growth and that we can build global brands from India.

Mensa has offices in Bengaluru, Mumbai and Gurugram and plans to scale its team exponentially in the coming months, hiring across growth, product, finance among others.

After getting a blockbuster exit from the PharmEasy-Medlife deal, Ananth Narayanan launched the new venture Mensa Brands in May this year. Mensa had also closed its Series A funding round, raising about $50 million in a  round led by investors such as Accel Partners as well as prominent angel investors such as Kunal Shah, Mukesh Bansal, Rahul Mehta of DST Global and Scott Shleifer of Tiger Global.

Mensa is a Thrasio-type startup and many such ventures are emerging in the country. US-based Thrasio is a digital consumer goods company that acquires private label Amazon FBA businesses and direct-to-consumer e-commerce brands.

In July this year, Flipkart Ventures and Tiger Global have made an investment in Thrasio-style venture G.O.A.T. Brand Labs. It would use the funding to accelerate the growth of digitally native brands in India. G.O.A.T was founded by Rishi Vasudev and Rameswar Misra, who bring with them decades of expertise in this space. Vasudev, a veteran retail executive, previously headed Flipkart's fashion business. The same month, India's largest Thrasio-style investment venture, GlobalBees raised $150 million in a mix of equity and debt in a Series A led by e-commerce firm FirstCry and some of its investors with additional participation from Lightspeed Venture Partners.

In June, this year, 10club, one of the early movers in the e-commerce roll-up space,  raised $40 million in seed funding. It is primarily using the funding for expanding 10club’s portfolio of brands, investing in building its technology stack, and for working capital purposes.  10club partners with e-commerce product sellers in India by acquiring their businesses.