VLCC to acquire men’s grooming brand Ustraa via a mix of cash and share swap

Beauty and skincare brand VLCC announced on June 9, 2023 that it will acquire men's grooming brand Ustraa in a secondary buyout and a share swap deal. Post merger, VLCC will make further investments to accelerate the growth of Ustraa.

With this acquisition, Ustraa’s existing investors — Info Edge, 360 One and Wipro Consumer Care Ventures will become shareholders of VLCC.

"The acquisition marks VLCC’s foray into Men's Grooming segment and enhances new age digital commerce and product innovation capabilities for the platform," the company said in a statement.

Ustraa's founders Rahul Anand and Rajat Tuli will continue to work with the company and will now head VLCC's direct to consumer play.

“This partnership brings together two pioneering home-grown personal care brands - combining Ustraa's leading position in men's grooming range with VLCC's growing skincare products portfolio,” VLCC said in the statement.

Ustraa was founded in 2013 by Rahul Sethi and Varun Alagh. The company sells a range of men's grooming products, including shaving razors, trimmers, beard oil, and hair styling products. Ustraa has a strong presence online and offline, with over 100,000 customers and 100+ retail touchpoints across India.

VLCC is a leading beauty and skincare brand in India. The company has a network of over 1,000 VLCC centres across India and the Middle East. VLCC is also a leading player in the e-commerce space, with its own online store and a presence on leading e-commerce platforms.

“The brand has over 85 SKUs across fragrances, hair care, face and beard care and (has) 2.2 million customers on their own app. Ustraa is backed by marquee investors including Info Edge, 360 One (formerly IIFL Ventures) and Wipro,” the statement said.

“We are impressed with Ustraa's leading position in (a) fast growing men’s grooming market, especially the D2C channel. Both founders have a deep understanding of the online D2C ecosystem including digital marketing, ecommerce and fast product innovation cycle which has enabled them to scale Ustraa in a short period of time,” VLCC CEO Vikas Gupta said in a statement.

Trilegal and KPMG advised VLCC on the acquisition. EY acted as exclusive financial advisor to HUMPL and its investors.

Info Edge’s co-founder Sanjeev Bikhchandandi said in a statement that they are “bullish about the synergies that can be realized in this VLCC-Ustraa merger”.

He added that they “look forward to working closely with the management team and Carlyle post-merger. VLCC’s focused strategy to scale up their products business using digital channels and high-quality product innovation is in sync with Ustraa's founding principles."

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