D2C unicorn Mamaearth’s parent company Honasa Consumer has acquired BBLUNT, a premium hair care, hair color, and styling products brand from Godrej Consumer Products Limited (GCPL).
This acquisition marks Honasa’s foray into the hairstyling industry as the BBlunt hair care and styling products business will be owned and managed by Honasa Consumer Pvt Ltd. In contrast, the BBLUNT salon business will continue to operate independently with the salons’ founding team Adhuna Bhabani, Osh Bhabani, and Avan Contractor continuing as Creative Directors of the company with Spoorthy Shetty as Chief Executive Officer. While Honasa’s 30 percent stake in BBLUNT is Rs 84.5 crore, its entire purchase, including different product lines, is for an overall deal value of Rs 134 crore.
BBLUNT’s product portfolio is extensive, including but not limited to hair colors, shampoos, styling products, and serums. The product line has been tested on real customers and crafted for Indian hair, weather, and water.
Honasa Consumer has multiple D2C brands like Mamaearth, The Derma Co., and Aqualogica under its belt and was incorporated in 2016 by Ghazal and Varun Alagh, launching their product line under the Mamaearth brand, which had initially started with selling baby care products but gradually moved on to become a complete personal care brand.
Commenting on the acquisition of BBLUNT, Honasa CEO and co-founder Varun Alagh said, “BBLUNT has carved a niche for itself and considering the market size of INR 6,000 Cr in hair color and hairstyling, the brand has potential to grow exponentially. Being a house of brands, Honasa Consumer has attained expertise in building millennial brands with a digital-first approach.”
BBLUNT Director and founder Adhuna Bhabani said,” BBLUNT and Honasa Consumer share a strong synergy and common brand values. Honasa is a strong player in the D2C and e-commerce space, and they see great potential in the brand and the salon heritage that we have. We, the team, are very excited to see what the future holds in this exciting new chapter for the brand.”
The acquisition of BBLUNT is advantageous for both Honasa and BBLUNT as it strengthens Honasa’s presence in the millennial personal care segment while allowing BBLUNT to leverage Honasa’s D2C and e-commerce presence to enhance and scale up its business. It will also help BBLUNT broaden its customer, product, geographical and technological base.
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Honasa Consumer has been on an acquisition spree since its entry to the unicorn club and is looking to be the ‘house of brands,’ a strategy that is fast gaining traction of late. In December, Honasa Consumer bought content platform Momspresso to expand its consumer engagement strategies. The company reported a net profit of Rs 24.6 crore for FY21 against a net loss of Rs 5.9 crore in 2019-20 (FY20) and has multiple backers, including Sequoia Capital.
Talking about plans for BBLUNT, Alagh said the focus will be on marketing the brand for millennials. BBLUNT clocked a revenue of around Rs 50 crore in FY21 and that the current annualized revenue run-rate is even higher.
