Ananth Narayanan starts Mensa Brands after exit from PharmEasy-Medlife deal

Mensa aims to create a tech-led 'House of Brands' for e-commerce industry; has closed Series A round, raising $50 mn from Accel, Kunal Shah, Mukesh Bansal and Scott Shleifer of Tiger Global

After getting a blockbuster exit from the PharmEasy-Medlife deal,  Ananth Narayanan has launched a new venture Mensa Brands which aims to create a technology-led ‘House of Brands’ built for the e-commerce industry.

Mensa has also closed its Series A funding round, raising about $50 million. The round was led by Accel Partners, Falcon Edge Capital, Norwest Venture Partners as well as prominent angel investors such as Kunal Shah, Mukesh Bansal, Rahul Mehta of DST Global and Scott Shleifer of Tiger Global. Additionally, debt financing facilities from Alteria Capital and InnoVen Capital are also secured.

Mensa's vision is to partner and invest in digital-first brands and scale them exponentially. Over the next 3 years, the firm will acquire over 50 brands across categories including home, garden, apparel, personal care and beauty. It would also take these brands to global markets such as the U.S and the Middle East.

“Scaling digital brands from India is a large opportunity,” said Ananth Narayanan, founder and CEO of Mensa Brands. “Incredibly excited and passionate about partnering with terrific founders and helping scale their brands globally. Having seen this first hand at Myntra and Medlife we know the effort it takes to scale a brand digitally.”

Narayanan previously served as CEO of Walmart-owned online fashion retailer Myntra and also, as a senior partner at McKinsey & Company. Most recently he was the co-founder and CEO of Medlife which he successfully merged into Pharmeasy to create the largest e-health company in India, with business verticals including pharmacy, diagnostics and e-consultation.

This month, PharmEasy said it has acquired Medlife for an undisclosed amount. The deal will make PharmEasy the largest player in the domestic online pharmacy sector, with the combined entity set to serve 2 million customers a month. The deal values the stake of Medlife shareholders at $250 million, according to the sources.

The founding team at Mensa, which means ‘constellation’ in the ancient Greek language, has a combined experience of over 60 years in Indian and global e-commerce. Mensa said it is passionate about growing and scaling brands via the application of growth marketing, operational improvement and working capital management.

“We're excited to partner with Ananth (Narayanan) and the team at Mensa. Not only are they truly strategic and high calibre, but also have chosen a problem of brand aggregation that we believe has the right tailwinds,” said Subrata Mitra, Partner at Accel Partners. “With the digital acceleration of commerce globally, this model would be additive to the brand owners, the platforms and the consumers and should thus scale rapidly.”

Critically, via their experience, Narayanan and his team bring in-house domain expertise in marketplace-native technology, data mining and digital marketing, category management and operations, brand building and global expansion. For market-places, Mensa will bring a data-led approach, a better balance sheet and a focus on the consumer experience with all of its brands that should help with overall NPS (net promoter score).

Navroz Udwadia, co-founder of Falcon Edge, said Narayanan and his team at Mensa are creating a fast growth and profitable start up. “It is a rare combination, and we fundamentally believe that a tech-led roll-up play across categories will create immense value.”

Mensa said it is excited to talk to entrepreneurs who are keen to partner with it as the firm would collectively nurture and scale brands.

“In Mensa, we see the birth of ‘Thrasio of India’ and are delighted to back Ananth (Narayanan) and team on their vision to create India’s first digital House of Brands,” said Niren Shah, managing director and head of Norwest Venture Partners India.

US-based Thrasio is a digital consumer goods company that acquires private label Amazon FBA businesses and direct-to-consumer e-commerce brands. Mensa would be looking at brands that have annual revenues of between Rs 10 crore to Rs 70 crore. And the opportunity is that there are few thousand such brands in the country.

Narayanan said the timing for the launch of Mensa is perfect as due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the tailwinds, a lot of brands are seeing very good momentum for online sales.

Mensa said it is different from e-commerce platforms such as Amazon and Flipkart, which are also providing digital tools to brands and taking them to different markets. The company said that it is ‘platform neutral’ and not affiliated to one marketplace.

“We will sell equally across all marketplaces and go global,” said Narayanan. “We can not only help the founders with (capital) but also help their brand grow. We are also able to provide them financial exit.”