Exclusive: Good Glamm Group in talks to acquire Ustraa

The Good Glamm Group has been on an acquisition spree lately. And now, the digital house of brands is eyeing its biggest one so far: Ustraa. The Prosus-backed company is in talks to acquire men’s grooming products startup Ustraa in a cash and stock deal, three people aware of the details of the transaction told Entrackr.

“The two companies have been in talks for about four to five weeks and the contours of the deal are being chalked out,” said one of the sources requesting anonymity. “Good Glamm Group has been exploring acquiring a men's grooming brand for some time and also held discussions with Bombay Shaving Company and The Man company in the past.”

The sources further said that talks with Bombay Shaving and The Man Company didn’t materialise. Entrackr couldn’t verify the reasons for this.

In the past 15 months, Good Glamm Group had acquired over half a dozen companies including D2C brand The Moms Company, content and commerce platforms Popxo, ScoopWhoop, BabyChakra, MissMalini, Tinysteps including personal care brand St. Botanica and video analytics company Vidooly.

“Good Glamm Group also engaged with Ustraa late last year but it didn’t move forward [then] due to differences over valuation,” said another source who also wished not to be named. “[This time] the deal is likely to value Ustraa in the range of over $70 million.” 

While Ustraa had a revenue of Rs 60 crore in FY20, the pandemic had eroded over 52% of its scale and the company’s revenue shrank to Rs 28.73 crore in FY21, according to Fintrackr’s analysis.

If the deal goes through, Ustraa will be valued at about 9X its FY20 income. To be sure, the deal may or may not materialise.

Queries sent to Ustraa and Good Glamm’s chief executives didn’t elicit any immediate response. Info Edge declined to comment on the story. 

According to Fintrackr’s calculation, Info Edge is the largest stakeholder in the NCR-based Ustraa with close to a 29.88% stake.

The Good Glamm Group had raised a $150 million Series D round and turned unicorn in November. The company claims to be India’s fastest-growing direct-to-consumer beauty brand, with a range of more than 800 products across categories such as makeup, skincare, and personal care. According to some media reports, the company is in talks to score a new round at over $2 billion valuation.

Meanwhile, The Good Glamm group is on the verge of completing the acquisition of video commerce platform BulBul. According to sources, BulBul’s co-founder and chief executive Sachin Bhatia has joined as CEO of The Good Creator Co (GCC) on Friday. 

GCC consolidates acquired companies such as Vidooly, Winkl, MissMalini, and PopXo’s influencer marketing platform Plixxo.