Roll-Up Ecommerce Unicorn Mensa Brands Acquires Aromatherapy D2C Brand Florona

Bengaluru-based ecommerce roll-up unicorn Mensa Brands has acquired a majority stake in aromatherapy and personal care D2C startup Florona. 

Florona offers 70 types of natural oils that contain both essential oils for diffusers and cold-pressed carrier oils. The startup was launched in 2013 by Aayush Gupta, to establish a foothold in the global market by offering aromatherapy products.

This is Mensa’s 16th acquisition in the last eight months, prior to this, it had acquired Kolkata based leather goods manufacturer and seller, Estalon. 

Founded by Ananth Narayanan, Mensa Brands became the fastest unicorn of India in 2021. Prior to Mensa, Narayanan was the CEO of Myntra and Medlife.

Speaking about the acquisition of Florona, Narayanan, said, “We are elated to welcome Florona into our growing digital-first House of Brands. The natural personal care market is growing exponentially across the globe and together we are building a leading brand in the segment. We are confident that with our technology, operations and digital brand-building expertise, we can grow the brand 10X in the next 5 years.”

Mensa is backed by investors such as Accel Partners, Falcon Edge Capital, Norwest Venture Partners, Prosus, and Tiger Global Management. 

It partners with brands that have an average annual revenue ranging between $1-10 Mn. Founder Ananth Narayanan previously told Inc42 that Mensa buys out a majority stake (50-60%) within the brand at 5-7x the EBITDA of the company.

Its current acquisitions spread across sectors such as fashion, beauty and personal care amongst others. Some of the acquired brands include Karagiri, Priyaasi, Dennis Lingo, Ishin, Hubberholme, Anubhutee, Helea, Villain.

For the growth scale of the partnered brands, the unicorn works in building the technology and data science, operations, marketing and investment values. 

 Just yesterday, another roll-up unicorn GlobalBees announced the acquisition of three D2C brands i.e. healthy-snack food brand – The Butternut Company; sustainable clothing company – Mush; and sports fitness equipment brand – Strauss. The total number of brands under GlobalBees portfolio stands at 11.

India has seen launch of several roll-up ecommerce startups (aka Thrasio styled) in the past year. Besides Mensa and GlobalBees, 10club, GOAT Brand Labs, Powerhouse91, Upscalio are other startups following the same model.