[Funding alert] Ex-Myntra CEO Ananth Narayanan's new venture Mensa Brands raises $50M in Series A round

Mensa Brands on Monday announced the closure of its Series A funding round, raising approximately $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, the company stated.  

According to the startup the fund will be used to nurture, accelerate and scale digital-first brands. 

Speaking on the development, 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 the CEO of Myntra, Co-Founder and CEO at Medlife,  as well as a Senior Partner at McKinsey & Company.

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Mensa is passionate about growing and scaling brands via the application of growth marketing, operational improvement and working capital management, states Ananth.

As per the release, the founding team has a combined experience of over 60 years in Indian and global ecommerce. 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 marketplaces, Mensa aims to bring a data-led approach, improve the balance sheet, and focus on the consumer experience with all of its brands that should help with overall NPS, stated the company. 

Commenting on the investment, 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 have a high calibre, but also have chosen the 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.” 

Further adding, Navroz Udwadia, Co-founder of Falcon Edge, stated,

“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”

“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,” added Niren Shah, Managing Director and Head of Norwest Venture Partners India.