How Mensa got to ₹8,000 Crore? 🤯
Behind India's fastest unicorn "Mensa"
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Coming back to Mensa’s story.
Mensa is India’s first-ever e-commerce roll-up company. They got a billion-dollar valuation in just 6 months and make ₹500+ Crores in revenue. It’s on a mission to scale 20 → 40 DTC brands at once. Started by an e-commerce genius - Ananth Narayanan - who’s been ex-CEO of Myntra, ex-Founder of Medlife, and ex-Mckinsey consultant, let’s dig deep.
So what did Mensa crack?
The “Thrasio” insight.
Thrasio is a US company started by 2 guys in 2018 who noticed a rise in 3rd party sellers on Amazon. You see, Amazon has 2 types of sellers.
First-party sellers or Vendors: Amazon acts as a wholesaler and is an invite-only program for big sellers that have high order volumes. Amazon takes all decisions from keyword optimization to pricing.
Third-party sellers: Amazon acts as a marketplace and all the decisions are taken by the seller. However, amazon makes logistics easy with FBA (Fulfilment by Amazon) service.
Thrasio started acquiring 3rd party sellers on Amazon who would get stuck at $5M revenue and then fix everything from them — branding, performance marketing, packaging, warehousing, etc. This resulted in a 30% increase in sales for these companies and the founders got a good exit.
Mensa used the Thrasio model for desi digital-first brands by acquiring more than 51% stakes in apparel, home, personal care, & beauty brands. These brands would have a revenue of ₹25-35 crores & the founders work with Mensa for next 5 years.
“India” consumption insight.
Mensa wants to make ₹1,000 Crore household brands are taking a bet on growing consumption & internet penetration. They are taking a bet on 2 things:
Growing private consumption: We’re the 5th biggest consumer market and are expected to hit the 3rd spot by 2026. Our private consumption makes 60% of our GDP — 2X to that of China.
Rapid internet boom: Our internet penetration is now 55%. This has supercharged the e-commerce market, giving rise to online-first brands. Despite this, big categories like clothing, personal care, and food are still largely unbranded.
As these sectors become more organised with rising incomes and as more people buy on the Internet, we’ll see more spending based on brand value.
Distribution Insight.
The Thrasio model & Mensa model might look similar, but they’re different. How?
They target different product categories. Thrasio acquires brands that make hot-seller items. Like Thrasio acquired “This Workx,” which only makes vacuum cleaners. But Mensa’s here to build brands. For that, they are playing the game differently:
Bullish on offline: This is again different from what Thrasio did. For one of their brands - MyFitness - 40% of the business comes from offline. The loop is simple: Solve discovery online → Solve trust offline.
Bullish on content: Another masterstroke is the buying of content companies like MenXP and IDiva. When Mensa bought these content giants both had about 35 million monthly active users—a huge relevant audience for promoting their products.
Create content → Reduce CAC → Solve community building.As per Ananth, brands must focus on different levers for different growth stages 👇
→ Less than ₹20 Crores: Focus on product, reviews and repeat rates.
→ ₹20 to ₹100 Crores: Focus on performance marketing & SKU expansion.
→ ₹100 to ₹500 Crores: Focus on offline stores, campaigns and communities.Fun Fact: Mensa now makes 30% of it’s total revenue from UAE, Canada & USA.
That’s not all, we launched a new episode of GrowthX Wireframe, where we cover Mensa Story in-depth.
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