VLCC to acquire men’s grooming brand Ustraa

Ustraa competes with companies such as Marico-backed Beardo, The Man Company and several others (representative image)

Beauty and skincare brand VLCC will acquire men’s grooming brand Ustraa in a a secondary buyout and a share swap deal, the company said on June 9. Through this, Ustraa’s existing investors — Info Edge, 360 One and Wipro Consumer Care Ventures will become shareholders of VLCC.

In a statement, VLCC said this marks its foray into the men’s grooming segment, and the company will make more investments into Ustraa to grow the brand. The beauty brand said the acquisition “enhances new age digital commerce and product innovation capabilities for the platform.”

Ustraa competes with companies such as Marico-backed Beardo, The Man Company and several others.

“This partnership brings together two pioneering home-grown personal care brands - combining Ustraa's leading position in men's grooming range with VLCC's growing skincare products portfolio,” VLCC said in the statement.

Ustraa’s founders Rahul Anand and Rajat Tuli, who had also founded Happily Unmarried, will continue to work with the company, and will now head VLCC's D2C (direct to consumer) play.

Ustraa had last raised money in August 2022, when the company last raised around Rs 16.8 crore in a round led by Info Edge.

According to Info Edge’s filing in 2022, when it last invested in the company, its aggregate shareholding in Happily Unmarried post the investment was 30.57 percent. Info Edge has invested Rs 13.5 crore in the company. In a filing on June 9, Info Edge said it received Rs 61 crore by way of cash and a share swap for its stake.

“The brand has over 85 SKUs across fragrances, hair care, face and beard care and (has) 2.2 million customers on their own app. Ustraa is backed by marquee investors including Info Edge, 360 One (formerly IIFL Ventures) and Wipro,” the statement said.

Founded by Anand and Tuli in 2015,  67 percent of Ustraa's sales come from online channels.

“We are impressed with Ustraa's leading position in (a) fast growing men’s grooming market, especially the D2C channel. Both founders have a deep understanding of the online D2C ecosystem including digital marketing, ecommerce and fast product innovation cycle which has enabled them to scale Ustraa in a short period of time,” VLCC CEO Vikas Gupta said in a statement.

He added that the aim is to grow Ustraa by using VLCC’s offline distribution. Similarly, Info Edge’s co-founder Sanjeev Bikhchandandi said in a statement that they are “bullish about the synergies that can be realized in this VLCC-Ustraa merger”.

He added that they “look forward to working closely with the management team and Carlyle post-merger. VLCC’s focused strategy to scale up their products business using digital channels and high-quality product innovation is in sync with Ustraa's founding principles."