Brnd.me’s (formerly Mensa Brands) founder and chief executive, Ananth Narayanan, often repeats a line in interviews. “We want to become a digital-first Unilever.”

Like muscle memory, he said it again minutes into a call with The Ken.

Narayanan doesn’t mean to literally become another Unilever, but build something similar, at least in structure. “Our vision is to build five to 10 large $150 million+ consumer brands that are each profitable and scalable, along with a tech backbone,” he said.

But that wasn’t the idea when Mensa launched in 2021. “We wanted to buy 50–100 different brands, grow them to a certain scale, and then decide if we wanted to continue with it or trade it off,” said a category manager at Brnd.me.

Narayanan seems to have now shelved that playbook, sharpening his focus to fewer, larger brands and picking a niche where there’s a competitive edge. After buying nearly 20 brands in a little over four years, the Bengaluru-based company’s acquisitions have come to a halt now. The company has also reorganised its portfolio, dropping certain sectors altogether.

“I didn’t want to be in electronics. It didn’t fit in,” said Narayanan, explaining the rationale behind selling smart-wearables brand Pebble, once positioned as a rival to Boat. “We decided to stick with health and wellness and lifestyle.”

And that’s what it did. In FY25, four brands—aromatherapy-focused Majestic Pure, health-food firm Myfitness, personal-care products maker Botanic Hearth, and decoration-kits supplier Partypropz—drove nearly 60% of Brnd.me’s Rs 1,400 crore revenue, claimed the founder. He expects to close FY26 with an extra Rs 100–200 crore on the top line, courtesy of global expansion.

But the past 15-odd months have been a struggle, said a former manager. The revenue growth has slowed, and scaling up isn’t as breezy as it used to be. The company’s losses in FY25 also widenedInc42Exclusive: BRND.ME Completes Reverse Flip Amid IPO Prep to Rs 500 crore from nearly Rs 360 crore the previous year.

Add to that, “there’s a perception that the roll-upOften referred to as e-commerce aggregators, it involves purchasing and grouping multiple small- to medium-sized, profitable, third-party brands under one holding company model doesn’t work,” said a second manager.

© The Ken