Indian Brands are Ready to become Globally Aspirational, Says Ananth Narayanan
Ananth Narayanan, chief executive of BRND.ME, formerly Mensa Brands, tells Nabodita Ganguly in an email interview why emerging markets are positioned to lead the next wave of aspirational brands. Edited excerpts
What are the strategic changes BRND.ME has made over the past couple of years? Why did you rebrand?
Since our inception four years ago, we’ve evolved from a broad-based house of brands into a focused platform, building global, profitable, digital-first consumer brands. BRND.ME is not a pivot, but a sharper expression of this vision.
The rebrand solves a functional need, we needed a single brand identity with trademark clearance across all operating categories globally. BRND is ‘brand’, the ‘dot’ signals ‘digital’ and ME stands for ‘consumer’. As an aside, the ‘M’ is similar to our earlier Mensa logo and brings familiarity.
We’ve always been excited about creating brands from India for the world. Today, half our revenue comes from outside India, with active expansion into Canada, the UK, Germany and the UAE.
What were the challenges as a house of brands focusing on India across multiple categories?
When we started, the ambition was to test and scale multiple white spaces in the Indian consumer landscape. The house-of-brands model gave us speed, category access and operating leverage early on. In the first 18 months, we onboarded over 20 brands across fashion, wellness, beauty, home and even content-led commerce.
As we matured, it became clear that not all categories aligned with our strengths or long-term margin thesis. The categories delivering strong product-market fit, high repeat rates and contribution to margin expansion were health, wellness and lifestyle. That insight led us to shift from breadth to depth.
Today, four brands, MyFitness, Botanic Hearth, Majestic Pure and Party Propz, form the core of our portfolio and contribute over 60% of revenue.
Mature consumer brands in the country say the domestic market is large and under-served. Why prioritise international expansion then?
We’ve always believed that if you want to build enduring consumer brands in today’s world, you have to think global from Day 1. We’re building consumer brands from India, for the world. That means using India’s structural strengths in sourcing, manufacturing and cost advantage, and combining those with a digital-first, tech-led, globally scalable brand strategy.
We don’t see geography as a constraint. We are building market leaders in consumer segments where the TAM [total addressable market] at a global level is extremely exciting. At the same time, India remains incredibly important to us and currently contributes around 50% of our revenue.
There was a time when aspiration was tied to geography. today, aspiration is tied to relevance, innovation, trust and authenticity
American and European consumer brands are seen as “aspirational”. Can consumer brands from emerging markets have the same draw?
Absolutely. The era of global consumer brands being built only in the West is behind us. Today, brands from emerging markets like India are not only capable of going global, they are uniquely positioned to lead the next wave of aspirational, digital-first and category-defining brands.
India has always had supply-side strength. What was missing was the demand-side branding muscle: building deep consumer love, understanding modern go-to-market strategies and creating platforms that scale globally. That gap is now closing.
There was a time when aspiration was tied to geography: made in Italy, designed in New York, born in Paris. Today, aspiration is tied to relevance, innovation, trust and authenticity. Indian-origin brands are ready to step into that space.
What are your levers of growth in the next couple of years?
First, product innovation powered by data. Second, channel expansion beyond D2C [direct-to-consumer] and marketplaces into quick commerce and modern retail. Third, deeper global expansion. The US is our largest market outside India, with West Asia, Canada, the UK and Germany also scaling.
Finally, platformisation. A common tech stack for NPD [new product development], pricing, performance marketing, demand forecasting and shared warehousing allows small teams to run about 1,00,000 ad campaigns a day and adjust bids and prices in near-real time.
You have said that you want to go public in two years. Isn’t it quite early?
The first step for us is to become an Indian company. We have already started the process of flipping our domicile from Singapore to India. We expect that to be completed by year-end. Once that is done, preparing for an IPO [initial public offering] is about an 18-month journey.
The timeline is not a hard deadline, but it reflects our confidence in the trajectory of the business.
What are some milestones you want to hit before the IPO?
First, we want to scale our biggest brands into the ₹500–1,000 crore range so they are true category leaders. Second, we want to show that our contribution margins stay healthy.
Third, we are focused on expanding our retail presence, both in India and in global markets. Fourth, we are doubling down on quick commerce and omnichannel.
Fifth, we want our portfolio to be recognised as a set of strong, individual brands with real recall and durable equity. Sixth, innovation has to stay at the heart of what we do.
Finally, we want to keep extending our track record of profitable growth. We have been profitable and operating cash positive for the last several months now, and our goal is to continue that trajectory right into the IPO.