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Mensa Brands Turns Unicorn Within Six Months The company has raised $135 million in Series B funding

By Shrabona Ghosh

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Mensa Brands

Mensa Brands, founded by Ananth Narayanan, has entered the Unicorn club after raising $135 million in Series B funding.

The round was led by Alpha Wave Ventures, Falcon Edge Capital with participation from existing investors Accel Partners, Norwest Venture Partners and Tiger Global Management. Prosus Ventures (Naspers) also invested in Mensa in this latest funding round. Within six months of starting the business, Mensa has raised a total of more than $300 million in equity and debt.

Mensa started its journey in May 2021 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. Mensa works closely with founding teams to accelerate growth on marketplaces, through the brand's own 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, said a statement.

Narayanan, founder and CEO of Mensa Brands, said in the statement, "We are grateful for the confidence from our investors and our brand partners. Our deep focus on technology and digital brand building, has allowed us to grow three times of our initial plan and 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."

Mensa builds global digital first brands from India by partnering with the right entrepreneurs, investing into the business, and bringing our expertise to bear to scale the brand. The founding team has a combined experience of over 100 years in Indian and global e-commerce.

Shrabona Ghosh

Correspondent

A journalist with a cosmopolitan mindset. I lead a project called 'Corporate Innovations' wherein I cover corporates across verticals and try to tell stories on innovations. Apart from this, I write industry pieces on FMCGs, auto, aviation, 5G and defense. 
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