Mensa Brands raises $40M debt capital from EvolutionX
Founded by Ananth Narayanan, Mensa Brands entered the unicorn club just a few months after its launch with $135 million funding in November 2021.
House of brands firm has secured $40 million from EvolutionX Debt Capital, a leading debt financing platform for growth-stage companies.
The funding is a mix of debt facility and convertible investment which will be used for building its portfolio across technology, operations, and marketing functions, the company said in a statement on Thursday.
EvolutionX Debt Capital—founded by DBS and Temasek—invests in technology-enabled companies across Asia with a special focus on India, China, and Southeast Asia.
Founded by Ananth Narayanan, Mensa Brands made its entry into the unicorn club just a few months after its launch with a $135 million fundraise in November 2021. In total, the firm has raised upwards of $200 million in equity from global investors including Accel, Tiger Global, Norwest Venture Partners, and Alpha Wave Global (erstwhile Falcon Edge Capital).
In February, it raised Rs 300 crore in debt from TradeCred, a Mumbai-based alternative debt platform.
"In the last two years, we have profitably scaled more than 20 brands across beauty and FMCG, fashion, home, and consumer electronics. We plan to use this new funding to continue building consumer-loved brands for the next generation of India," Narayanan said in a statement.
Ananth Narayanan, Founder and CEO, Mensa Brands
Narayanan was earlier the CEO of Myntra Jabong and Co-founder of Medlife.com.
Rahul Shah, Partner at EvolutionX Debt Capital, added, "Mensa has proven its execution capabilities with the successful acquisition of multiple brands, and we look forward to supporting the company’s journey as it continues to grow its brands both in domestic and international markets. With this investment, we continue our strategy to invest in category-leading growth stage tech companies in Asia."
Mensa—which owns close to 20 brands including iDiva, Dennis Lingo, and Pebble—logged a revenue of $41.2 million (~Rs 310 crore) in its first year of operations in FY22.
The house of brands company is banking on offline presence as the dealbreaker for its portfolio of brands, Narayanan told YourStory in June. According to him, offline retail is the natural progression for direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands beyond the Rs 150 crore run rate.
In August, Mensa forayed into the UAE ecommerce landscape with the launch of Villain, Pebble and Folkulture on Amazon UAE and ecommerce platform noon.
Edited by Kanishk Singh