Indian ecommerce roll-up Mensa Brands raises $135 million to become Asia’s fastest unicorn

Indian technology-led house of brands player Mensa Brands has recently raised $135 million in Series B funding round led by Alpha Wave Ventures (Falcon Edge Capital’s growth stage platform) at a valuation of about $1.2 billion.

The funding round was joined by existing investors including Norwest Venture Partners, Tiger Global Ventures, and Accel Partners along with new investor Porsus Ventures.

“We are excited to support Mensa Brands in the journey to build digital-first global brands. The team brings superior execution focus and technology chops to help emerging brands scale digitally,” said Ashutosh Sharma, head of investments, India, Prosus Ventures.

Mensa Brands has raised a total of over $300 million in equity and debt within six months of its launch. With this new funding, the startup enters the coveted unicorn club making it the fastest Indian startup to achieve this status.

The startup plans to deploy the fresh funding to fast-track its growth, ramp up acquisitions, and scale its team across marketing, technology, and operations. Mensa Brands has a team of about 60 people and it looks to scale it to 150-200 within a year and a half.

“We are grateful for the confidence from our investors and our brand partners. Our deep focus on technology and digital brand building, as well as our people, has allowed us to grow 3X of our initial plan,” said Ananth Narayanan, Founder and CEO of Mensa Brands.

“We at Mensa Brands are primed to build global breakout brands from India. I am especially proud that more than 50 per cent of our brands are led by women founders and that Mensa supports small- and medium-sized businesses across the country,” said Narayanan.

About Mensa Brands

Founded this year by Ananth Narayanan, Aniket Nikumb, and Pawan Kumar Dasaraju, Mensa Brands partners with entrepreneurs to build digital brands across food, fashion & apparel, beauty & personal care, home & garden, and scale them. The startup’s business model involves investing working capital and picking up equity in other D2C startups and scaling their brand presence online.

Mensa works closely with founding teams to speed up growth to marketplaces via the brand’s website, and global platforms by using a blend of initiatives across product, marketing, distribution, brand building, and pricing with technology at its core.

This year in May, Mensa  raised about $50 million in a Series A funding round led by Falcon Edge Capital, Accel Partners, and Norwest Venture Partners. The startup raised another $33 million in August 2021.