MARICO Completes Stake in Beardo

Venture Catalysts earns great margins in ROI as FMCG Major Marico fully acquires their men’s grooming brand ‘Beardo’.

Integrated incubator and accelerator platform Venture Catalysts (VCats) announced a complete acquisition of its portfolio company ‘Beardo’ by FMCG major Marico Ltd. With this acquisition, VCats has taken a complete exit from the company with stellar returns on investment in the range of 5x-8x. Besides Beardo, VCats has seen over 20 exits in just a span of four years, including — Fynd to Reliance Industries, Supr to Swiggy, Innov8 to OYO, Vahanalytics to Rapido, and Siftr to Apus.

In 2016, VCats, along-with other investors, had invested around $500k in Ahmedabad-based Beardo, a men’s grooming brand that sells beard oils, beard waxes, soaps, and other facial hair products. Founded by Ashutosh Valani and Priyank Shah in 2015, Beardo is one of VCats’ earliest bets. With an aim to strengthen its presence in the burgeoning men’s grooming segment in India, Marico had acquired a 45% stake in Beardo in 2017. Sensing the tremendous potential in the segment, Marico acquired an additional 55 % equity share in Beardo’s parent company Zed Lifestyle Pvt. Ltd, earlier this week.

VCats, which scouts, helps, and mentors early-stage startups from the Tier-2 towns and cities of India, has helped Beardo grow its revenue by 40x since 2016.

Besides VCats, Beardo also counts actor Suniel Shetty as its investor and had recently roped in Bollywood star Hrithik Roshan as its brand ambassador. Beardo operates in a very competitive segment that has seen the emergence of several heavily funded startups such as Bombay Shaving Company, Ustraa, LetsShave, and The Man Company in the last few years.