Tokyo-based consumer internet company Istyle has acquired a minority stake in the Hyderabad-based women-focused content startup Incnut Digital, in a secondary transaction worth around ₹25 crores, said Sateesh Andra, MD, Endiya Partners.
The deal marks the exit of Hyderabad-based venture capital firm Ventureast, earning 50x returns on its investment, through the secondary transaction. This deal also marks Istyle’s first investment in the Indian consumer internet market.
Previously, Andra was the managing partner at Ventureast and continues to manage the unrealised portfolio of Ventureast Tenet Fund II, which invested in Incnut.
The details regarding the size of the stake that changed hands remain undisclosed.
Incnut Digital was co-founded by IIT Kharagpur graduate, Chaitanya Nallan, along with Sangram Simha and Veerendra Sivhare in 2011. The startup operates StyleCraze, a beauty and wellness community for women, MomJunction, a parenting community, and The Bridal Box, a wedding platform.
After concluding the funding round, the startup is further looking to hit the market to raise a fresh round of funding.
The startup claims that its beauty and wellness platform StyleCraze gets more than 3.5 crore unique monthly visitors, while its parenting platform MomJunction, attracts around 2.2 crore unique monthly page views.
The Bridal Box is a wedding platform to share contemporary knowledge about everything related to weddings – photography, venues, decorations, bridal and groom fashion, make-up styles and so much more.
Other players competing with Incnut, in the women-focused content domain, include, New Delhi-based POPxo, Sheroes, MissMalini, and Femina, among others.
Last month, Women’s community platform Sheroes raised an undisclosed amount of funds from vc firm Leo Capital and Anand Chandrasekaran.
In July 2018, POPxo launched an e-commerce platform called POPxo Shop, focusing on categories for women.
Istyle is a Tokyo Stock Exchange company, founded in 1999. It operates Cosmo, an online beauty and cosmetic products platform.