Mensa Brands’ revenue jumps to Rs 505 crore; losses mount in FY23

Mensa Brands, which was founded in 2021 by former Myntra CEO Ananth Narayanan, turned unicorn within six months of its operations, which was the fastest for any e-commerce company in India

Mensa Brands, the rollup e-commerce startup, clocked a revenue of Rs 505 crore in FY23, an increase of 151 percent from Rs 201 crore that it clocked in FY22, regulatory filings sourced via Tofler showed.

The growth in scale, however, resulted in the company’s losses also widening during the fiscal. Mensa Brands’ losses went up from Rs 88 crore in FY22 to Rs 214 crore in FY23, or a 143 percent change year-on-year (YoY). To be sure, these are results that Mensa Brands has filed with the regulators in India. Mensa Brands is a Singapore-registered company.

The startup, which acquires controlling stake in smaller, profitable startups and brings businesses under its wings, spent more on employee benefit expenses, marketing and other expenses. The company’s total expenses increased from Rs 289 crore in FY22 to Rs 719 crore in FY23 which was a 149 percent increase YoY.

“We are very pleased with our overall operating performance…(We are) one of the largest DTC companies in India, seven of our brands are now over Rs 100 crore ARR and many of these have grown 5-6x since Mensa (has) taken over. 90 percent of the brands are profitable at the EBITDA level and we are at break-even at the corporate level,” a spokesperson said on the company’s FY23 performance.

The comments come at a time when Mensa has been securing more funds to grow its business. In October, it closed a $40 million (around Rs 330 crore) debt-financing round from EvolutionX. Months before that, in February, Mensa Brands closed a Rs 300 crore debt round from TradeCred. The company had said it would use the funds to acquire more consumer tech companies.

Earlier in the year, Mensa had said it is now shifting focus to now concentrate on larger companies. It said it would only eye startups that are in the Rs 50-200 crore revenue range and not engage with smaller companies as it scales operations.

Founded by former Myntra CEO Ananth Narayanan in 2021, Mensa Brands has already diluted about 60 percent of its stake to investors and holds the remaining 40 percent, according to Tracxn, a private markets data provider. Alpha Wave, Accel, Tiger Global and Prosus are among its notable backers.

Mensa has raised $200 million so far, including $135 million it raised in a Series B round, and was last valued at $1.2 billion, becoming India’s fastest unicorn.

The results come at a time when the roll-up ecommerce space is growing slower than expected. In May, US-based Thrasio, the global roll-up e-commerce player, divested the bulk of its holdings in Lifelong Online, the only firm it acquired in the country and scaled back operations and neared bankruptcy.

Even Mensa had a round of layoffs as it restructured operations after a slowdown. Mensa Brands competes with GlobalBees, GOAT Brand Labs, Evenflow, Powerhouse 91, 10Club and Upscalio. Several companies like 10Club have pivoted after their business models failed to yield desired results.