ITC acquires a 10% stake in this mom-and-child care brand as it looks to hop onto the D2C train

• Tobacco giant ITC today announced the acquisition of a 10% stake in its second direct-to-consumer brand, Mylo.
  
• Earlier, the tobacco-to-paper company had picked up a stake in Mother Sparsh, which also caters to a similar audience.
  
• Mylo is a mom-and-child care brand that leverages the learn-share-buy philosophy to drive engagement on its platform as well as sales.
  

Tobacco-to-paper giant ITC has acquired a 10% stake in Mylo, a direct-to-consumer brand that focuses on mom and child care needs, the company revealed in an exchange filing on Thursday.

The ITC share price was marginally up as of 1 p.m., on April 21.


According to the announcement, the 10% stake in Mylo cost ITC ₹40 crore, valuing the mom-and-child care brand at approximately ₹400 crore. The acquisition expands ITC’s footprint in the direct-to-consumer (D2C) business segment.

Mylo, founded in 2017, focuses on young parents by offering them mother and child care options, community connect and more.

This is ITC’s second such stake acquisition in this segment. Earlier in 2021, the tobacco giant had acquired a 16% stake in another mother care brand called Mother Sparsh for ₹20 crore.

“Within a short period of time, Mylo has demonstrated great potential in the evolving Content-to-Community-to-Commerce model by nurturing an online platform where people learn, share, trust and belong,” said Sameer Satpathy, chief executive of the personal care business vertical of ITC.

He also highlighted that the Mylo stake acquisition will help ITC strengthen its focus on this business segment, leveraging the expertise of Mylo.

Understanding Mylo’s community-driven platform

Mylo is a brand established by Blupin Technologies in 2017. It is a community-driven platform that leverages the concept of learn-share-buy, meaning community members help each other understand their needs and buy products accordingly.

According to the company, Mylo users have posted over 22 lakh questions till date, with over 1.6 crore answers and 3.7 crore pieces of content.

Mylo currently sells natural and chemical-free personal care products, other essential daily use products, and other ayurvedic alternatives. It currently has a portfolio of over 100 products across the Mylo Care, Essentials and Veda brands.

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