The Mamearth Makeover, RMG Platforms Bleed & More

The Mamaearth Makeover

Last financial year (FY25) was brutal for Honasa Consumer. The Mamaearth parent tumbled into losses mid-year, watched its stock crater, witnessed leadership churn, and even saw distributors abandon its ship. But then, the D2C unicorn scripted a strong comeback in Q1, turning its ship around after a year of trials and tribulations.

The Art Of Surgical Precision: Honasa’s revival story hinged on cutting through the clutter of its 122 products to laser-focus on six powerhouse brands – Mamaearth, The Derma Co, Bblunt, Staze, Aqualogica, and Dr Sheth’s – that drive over 80% of revenue. The strategy shift is already delivering dividends with double-digit growth across the focussed portfolio in Q1.

The Pivot To Innovation: Honasa’s revamped approach also centred on building formulations based on real consumer search patterns and trending ingredients. Alongside, the company also doubled down on premium and active-ingredient-based products to woo customers. Deploying AI and forging strategic partnerships with Meta and Google also helped it sharpen its competitive edge in an increasingly crowded market.

The Omnichannel Juggle: Quick commerce has emerged as Honasa’s secret weapon, outpacing traditional ecommerce channels and becoming the primary growth driver. While betting heavily on this commission-intensive model, the company is simultaneously rebuilding offline relationships after Project Neev’s rocky start left inventory piling up. Alongside, the company is also betting on an aggressive southern expansion with region-specific product mixes.

Still, concerns remain over quick commerce commissions eating into Honasa’s profitability as rivals poach the company’s affordable customers with slightly premium offerings. Can Honasa sustain this hard-won momentum? Let’s find out…

From The Editor’s Desk

Gaming Platforms Bleed: As the upper house of the Parliament passed the contentious online gaming bill, at least five startups, including MPL, Gameskraft, Cricbuzz11, Probo and Zupee, either paused or shut down their real money gaming operations.

CCPA Penalises Rapido: The consumer protection body has slapped a penalty of INR 10 Lakh on the ride-hailing major for misleading ads and unfair trade practices. The fines were imposed over Rapido’s allegedly misleading “auto in 5 min or get INR 50” campaign.

Can NODWIN Level Up? Nazara’s backing has been pivotal for the esports giant, which has grown from a mere INR 18 Cr revenue in 2018 to over INR 500 Cr in FY25. With the listed gaming giant relinquishing its board control, what does NODWIN’s next evolution look like?

Bike Taxis Back In Bengaluru: Two months after the Karnataka HC ordered a ban on bike taxi services in the state, Uber and Rapido have resumed their services in the city. This comes a day after the HC set a month’s deadline for the government to clarify its stand on bike taxi rules.

Decoding Kissht’s Cap Table: Kissht has applied for an at least INR 1,000 Cr IPO, which also comprises an OFS component of 88.8 Lakh shares. Vertex Ventures is its biggest shareholder and will be looking to sell up to 50 Lakh shares via the IPO.

India’s Semiconductor Dawn: MoS IT Jitin Prasada has said that the country’s first homegrown chip will likely be rolled out by the end of this year. This comes a week after the Union cabinet cleared four new semiconductor projects worth INR 4,584 Cr.

Blending Astrology With AI: AstroSure is disrupting the Indian online astrology market with its AI-powered chatbot, which is trained to deliver instant and personalised guidance. Can it stand its ground against giants like Astrotalk and InstaAstro?

Nazara’s Free Fall: Shares of the gaming major slumped 11.18% to INR 1,085 apiece during the intraday trading on the BSE yesterday. The free company’s share price tanked as the entire gaming sector is seething under the impact of a new bill that bans online real money gaming.

Inc42 Startup Spotlight Can Bloq Become The NVIDIA Of Quantum Algorithms?

Once confined to research labs, quantum computing is now racing toward commercialisation. Yet, these futuristic machines are only as powerful as the algorithms that run them. Meet Kollam-based Bloq Quantum, a young startup that is looking to become the software backbone of the quantum revolution.

Decoding The Quantum Puzzle: Bloq helps enterprises build, test, and deploy custom quantum algorithms 10X faster through its low-code software platform. Acting as a bridge between enterprises and quantum hardware, it enables its clients to design bespoke algorithms and run them across multiple quantum systems.

Healthy Early Traction: The 10-member team has already partnered with an Indian quantum hardware company to pilot its offerings, and is also in talks to deploy its products at 10 global enterprises. With use cases spanning industries like pharma, fintech and auto, Bloq sees itself catering to at least 200 global enterprises in the future with dedicated quantum teams.

Can Bloq Take The Big Leap? With competitors like BlueQubit and Strangeworks far ahead of it in terms of funding, Bloq is taking steady steps to gain a firm foothold in the quantum computing space. Positioning itself as the “NVIDIA for quantum algorithms”, can Bloq power the next era of computational breakthroughs?

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