Bangalore: Mensa Brands announced the closure of its Series A round, raising approx. $50 million. It aims to create a technology-led ‘House of Brands’ built for the e-commerce world. Mensa’s vision is to partner and invest in digital-first brands and scale them exponentially. Over the next 3 years, Mensa will acquire 50+ brands across categories including home, garden, apparel, personal care, and beauty.
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.
Speaking on the occasion Ananth Narayanan, Founder, and CEO of Mensa Brands said, “Scaling digital brands from India is a large opportunity. 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 – we will be a true trustee of your brand.”
Ananth Narayanan previously served as CEO of Myntra, Co-Founder and CEO at Medlifeand also, as a Senior Partner at McKinsey & Company. The Founding Team today has a combined experience of over 60 years in Indian and Global e-commerce. Mensa is passionate about growing and scaling brands via the application of growth marketing, operational improvement, and working capital management. Critically, via their experience, Ananth 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.
Subrata Mitra, Partner at Accel Partners said, “We’re excited to partner with Ananth and the team at Mensa. Not only are they truly strategic and high caliber, but also have chosen a problem of brand aggregation that we believe has the right tailwinds. 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.”
Navroz Udwadia, Co-Founder of Falcon Edge said “Ananth and Mensa are creating a fast growth and profitable start up- a rare combination, and we fundamentally believe that a tech-led roll-up play across categories will create immense value”
Niren Shah, Managing Director and Head of Norwest Venture Partners India added, “In Mensa, we see the birth of ‘Thrasio of India’ and are delighted to back Ananth and team on their vision to create India’s first digital House of Brands.”
