Personal care start-up mCaffeine – backed by Amicus Capital and RPSG Capital – is eyeing entry into new verticals across segments such as beauty care, cosmetics and male grooming.

The company has already initiated discussions with “some online first brands” having annual revenue ₹15-40 crore.

According to Tarun Sharma, Founder and CEO, mCaffeine, inorganic expansion plans include getting into new verticals and adjacencies “where mCaffeine is not yet present” preferably through “acquisition of existing brands”.

“We look to enter verticals like beauty care and cosmetics, followed by male grooming. Rather than extending our brand, we would want to acquire existing players in this space. This would allow us a larger share in the customer’s wallet,” he told BusinessLine.

“We have built an acquisition corpus and discussions have begun. We are adequately capitalised. Plus we are EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) positive. We are confident that we can leverage the acquisition further in terms of turnover,” he added.

Primarily into personal care such as face wash and scrub, body scrubs and washes, face serum and hair care offerings, the Mumbai-based mCaffeine is eyeing a turnover of ₹200 crore this fiscal.

Offline journey

According to Sharma, the company is firming up offline expansion plans as it looks to be an omni-channel player, from a digital only brand.

It is already present in 1000 stores in Western India that mostly include standalone beauty product shops and premium stores.

Expansion in South Indian markets is likely to begin “over the next few months”.

Getting into organised retail stores could happen October-end; while discussions have begun with premium chemist chains for “shelf space across 200 such stores”.

“By FY23, we are targeting a presence in 10,000 point of sales, pan India. North and East India expansion should begin next year onwards,” he said.

Marketing & advertising

mCaffeine is looking at spending nearly ₹250 crore towards marketing and advertising, which include distribution ramp up, till FY24.

Customer-wise nearly 45 per cent of its sales come from the top 10 cities (Tier 1); 20 per cent from Tier 2 and the remaining from Tier 3 and downwards.

Overseas plans

Plans are also afoot for an international foray — into three countries across West and South Asia — by end of this fiscal.

The target, says Sharma, is to be present in 15 countries, including European nations, by FY23.

“We have got 93 queries so far which include listing requests from foreign sites,” he adds.

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