Meet Mensa Brands, one of Asia’s fastest and India's 37th unicorn of 2021

The direct-to-consumer (D2C) house of brands startup Mensa Brands raised Series B funding of $135 million at a valuation of over a billion dollars. So far, Mensa has raised a total of over $300 million in equity and debt.

Wednesday November 17, 2021 , 3 min Read

The direct-to-consumer (D2C) house of brands startup Mensa Brands raised Series B funding of $135 million at a valuation of over a billion dollars. So far, Mensa Brands has raised a total of over $300 million in equity and debt.

Mensa is now one of the fastest unicorns in Asia, after attaining the status within six months of its inception.

The startup was launched in May 2021 by Ananth Narayanan with a vision to partner and invest in digital-first brands across fashion and apparel, home and garden, beauty and personal care, and food and scale them exponentially.

The new unicorn — 37th during 2021 — works closely with founding teams to accelerate growth on marketplaces through the brand's websites and global platforms by using a combination of initiatives across product, pricing, marketing, distribution, and brand building with a technology platform at the core.

The latest investment round was led by Alpha Wave Ventures | Falcon Edge Capital, with participation from all existing investors — Accel Partners, Norwest Venture Partners, and Tiger Global Management. Prosus Ventures (Naspers) also invested in Mensa in this latest funding round.

Already profitable, Mensa will use the funding to continue partnering with founding teams of customer-loved brands and help them become household names. Besides, it’ll invest in hiring across functions and continue building out its tech platform and other growth capabilities.

Check out YourStory's full coverage of TechSparks 2021 here.

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The Interview

Leaders from Shadowfax, Porter, Shipsy, Zoomcar, and Bounce reveal how the startups overcame operational challenges and quickly worked towards evolving their offerings to meet the new needs of their customer base in the past 18 months.

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News & Updates

G.O.A.T Brand Labs, the Bengaluru-based startup that accelerates the growth of D2C brands, announced the acquisition of 11 direct-to-consumer brands from various categories.

Ola's General Counsel Sandeep Chowdhury has resigned after a nine-month stint with the company, according to sources. The development comes close on the heels of Ola CFO Swayam Saurabh and COO Gaurav Porwal also having left the company. These exits come ahead of Ola's plans to go in for an initial public offering (IPO).

GENLEAP, a Gurugram-based startup that combines technology capabilities of HR and education segments, has raised Rs 60 crore in a seed round of funding from a group of angel investors.