D2C personal care brand mCaffeine raises $31.5 Mn in Series C round

Personal care brand mCaffeine has secured $31.5 million in its Series C funding round led by Paragon Partners. Singularity Growth Opportunities Fund, Sharrp Ventures, and existing investors Amicus Capital Partners and RPSG Capital Ventures also participated in the round.

According to the direct-to-consumer company, it has picked up the new round at a valuation of Rs 1,000 crore or more than $130 million. The Mumbai-based startup had previously scooped up $6 million in Series B in September 2020 and has raised $40 million across three financing rounds to date.

mCaffeine, which has a presence in India, the United Arab Emirates, Nepal and Maldives, plans to launch its products in 12 countries in 2022, said the company in a statement. The brand will first launch its products in the Middle East and North African countries, before expanding to Europe and the US.

According to mCaffeine, it does about 90% of business online through its own portal as well as marketplaces such as Amazon, Nykaa and Flipkart and remaining from offline outlets.  The company will also utilise the funds to grow its offline presence to 25,000 outlets from its existing 5,000.

Founded by Tarun Sharma, Vikas Lachhwani, Vaishali Gupta, Mohit Jain and Saurabh Singhal, six-year-old mCaffeine deals in four major categories: face, hair, body and lip care. The brand is focused on the millennial lifestyle and claims to have sold more than 10 million products since its inception.

In the D2C beauty space, mCaffeine competes with the likes of Plum, Juicy Chemistry, Wow Skin, MamaEarth, Sugar Cosmetics and MyGlamm. 

For the fiscal year ending in March 2021, mCaffeine’s revenue from operations jumped 65% to Rs 66.51 crore from Rs 40.30 crore in FY20, as per its regulatory filings. During the period, its expenses increased 63% to Rs 74.88 crore as a result, it recorded Rs 8.29 crore loss in FY21 as compared to Rs 5.51 crore in the preceding fiscal year.

The company expects to garner about Rs 100 crore in revenue from international markets over the next five years.