The Man Company, a D2C grooming brand for men, has raised around Rs 50 crore primary capital from Emami.

This is the third investment by Emami in the six-year-old Gurugram-based grooming company. And with this fresh funding, Emami has become the largest stakeholder in The Man Company and now controls a 45.96% stake.

Started by Bhisham Bhateja, Hitesh Dhingra, and Parvesh Kumar, The Man Company offers chemical-free products enthusiastically infused with premium essential oils. The grooming brand manufactures and retails products in skin and hair care verticals. The Man Company competes with brands like Beardo, Ustraa, and The Bombay Shaving Company.

With this deal, the collective holdings of its co-founders Bhisham Bhateja, Hitesh Dhingra, and Parvesh Kumar have been diluted to 36.5%.

[Read: How Corporate Venturing Is Accelerating The Growth of Indian Startups]

There has been strong participation in men grooming space from industry giants like Emami and Marico. In June 2020, Marico acquired the men grooming brand Beardo.

The growth of D2C men focused grooming brands have been sluggish as compared to D2C brands operating in the women’s beauty space. Compared to Marico-owned Beardo and Ustraa, who had recorded revenues of Rs 78 crore and Rs 60 crore in FY20, respectively, women-focused brands like MamaEarth and Sugar Cosmetics had surpassed the three-digit figure in the fiscal ending March 2020.

Though a fraction of that of the women’s space, experts believe that the men’s grooming market is growing but at its own slow pace and would take several years to reach a sizable scale.

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