Goodbye, glamour: The fall of India’s most hyped brand aggregator

The Thrasio model that failed the Indian test. The failure of the Good Glamm Group may not mark the end of D2C in India, but it does raise crucial questions about scale, sustainability, and execution.

In a sobering LinkedIn post, Darpan Sanghvi, CEO and co-founder of The Good Glamm Group, acknowledged what industry insiders had been whispering for months—India’s once-celebrated content-to-commerce startup has crumbled under its own weight.

The company, which rose to prominence by acquiring a suite of consumer brands like The Moms Co, Organic Harvest, and Sirona, alongside digital media platforms such as MissMalini and ScoopWhoop, is now undergoing a restructuring exercise. According to Sanghvi, the lenders have decided to enforce their charge on individual brands, marking a formal end to the group’s ambitious consolidation strategy.

The cracks beneath the glam

The signs of trouble had begun surfacing earlier this year. As per industry estimates, Good Glamm’s debt now stands at ₹250 crore. While the company explored multiple avenues—partial brand sales, refinancing, and fresh investments to keep the conglomerate intact—the efforts proved insufficient.

According to multiple media sources, some of the acquired brands may be repurchased by their original founders at a significantly lower valuation. Sirona, for instance, was bought back for close to ₹200 crore—less than half of the ₹450 crore Good Glamm had reportedly paid during its acquisition spree.

Yet, beyond the balance sheet and headlines lies a broader cautionary tale about the “House of Brands” model in India.

The collapse of the Good Glamm Group is emblematic of a larger trend—the struggle of Thrasio-style brand aggregation in the Indian market. Inspired by US-based Thrasio—which itself filed for bankruptcy last year—several Indian startups like Mensa Brands, GlobalBees, TMRW, and others tried to replicate the model by acquiring digital-first D2C brands and scaling them using centralised marketing, operations, and distribution.

“When this model entered India, there was a lot of capital chasing new ideas,” says Satish Meena from Datum Intelligence. “Investors believed India was a brand-deficient market and aggregators could scale brands efficiently. But building a brand in India is expensive due to the high degree of customisation needed. Without continuous capital inflow, many brands stagnated.”

These aggregators paid steep valuations, hoping to optimise operations and marketing to scale brands swiftly. But funding dried up before those efficiencies could be realized.

The D2C dilemma

In India’s competitive beauty and personal care landscape, customers are open to experimentation but rarely exhibit brand loyalty unless there’s something truly unique on offer. And for most of Good Glamm’s brands, differentiation was lacking.

“The assumption was that performance marketing would be the secret sauce,” says Meena. “But with little capital and even less time, execution faltered. Mensa, for instance, planned an IPO but had to shelve it due to funding delays and business instability.”

That said, Meena still sees potential in India’s D2C ecosystem.
“India remains a brand-deficient market,” he notes. “But newness alone won’t cut it. D2C brands must stand out in pricing, packaging, innovation, or distribution. If they can’t retain customers, they’ll bleed money in acquiring them.”

The failure of the Good Glamm Group doesn’t mark the end of D2C in India, but it does raise crucial questions about scale, sustainability, and execution.