Jun 25, 2025

In 2025, the entrepreneurial spotlight has shifted from “ starting up” to “scaling smart ” — and that often means buying into businesses that already work. From MSMEs in India to influencer-led global brands, buying existing operations with real revenue and brand loyalty has become the smarter, faster, and more strategic path to building a business. As we step into MSME Week, leading up to Micro, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises it's worth asking: Has acquisition become the new age startup mantra? Skip the Grind, Buy the Growth Entrepreneurs across sectors are waking up to a powerful insight: why build from zero when you can start from profit-positive, team-ready, and brand-loved? Forget burning cash to find product-market fit. Today's founders are: Acquiring profitable MSMEs or D2C brands, Leveraging existing infrastructure, Injecting modern tech, design, and growth hacks, And scaling 5x faster than those starting from scratch. These aren't failing businesses — they're functioning ones with cash flow, credibility , and consumer connection . All they need is a fresh operator and digital-age thinking. The Global Wave: Billion-Dollar Beauty and Beyond One of 2025's biggest headlines came when e.l.f. Beauty acquired Rhode, Hailey Bieber's viral skincare brand , for a jaw-dropping $1 billion — a mix of cash, stock, and earn-outs. With $212M in revenue in 12 months , Rhode was already a success story. E.l.f. saw an opportunity not to compete, but to acquire influence and revenue in one bold move. In a similar vein, NuFace, known for its skincare devices, was snapped up by Crown Labs to deepen its global wellness portfolio. These acquisitions show a clear shift: you don't have to build the next big brand — you can buy it, elevate it, and dominate faster. India Rising: From Kirana Stores to Content Kings India's market is booming with smart acquisitions — especially among MSMEs and D2C players. Here's what's hot: ● Delhivery → Ecom Express In 2024, logistics giant Delhivery acquired 99.4% of Ecom Express for ₹1,407 crore — instantly boosting scale, delivery muscle, and market share. Instead of building, they absorbed strength. ● Curefoods → Frozen Bottle, Yumlane & more Curefoods, led by Ankit Nagori, has acquired over 15 cloud kitchens — buying customer love, menus, and kitchen networks rather than cooking up something new. ● GOAT Brand Labs → Chumbak, The Label Life, trueBrowns With over 20 D2C brand acquisitions, GOAT isn't building brands — it's curating them into an e-commerce empire with consolidated marketing, operations, and fulfillment. ● Mensa Brands → Villain, Dennis Lingo, MyFitness This “house of brands” model is the Indian answer to global giants. Mensa is purchasing successful niche labels and taking them pan-India using tech and capital. ● Nazara Technologies → Smaaash, Fusebox Games, Comic Con India In one of the boldest multi-category expansion plays, Nazara acquired entertainment brands across gaming and events — building a youth-centric ecosystem by acquisition. ● UGRO Capital → Profectus Capital In lending, UGRO acquired Profectus for ₹1,400 crore, signaling that even financial institutions are scaling faster through consolidation, not competition. ● Mahindra → SML Isuzu, Adani → Essar Mahan-Sipat, Sun Pharma → Checkpoint Therapeutics From auto to pharma to energy, India's biggest conglomerates are growing horizontally, acquiring niche players to accelerate dominance in adjacent sectors. Why This Works: Strategy Over Struggle Let's call it what it is: smart business. Buying a brand = buying its community, supply chain, and proof of concept. Founders sidestep years of validation, and investors get cash-flowing assets from Day 1. Operational risk decreases, and go-to-market speeds up drastically. Think of it like flipping a house. You don't build from the ground up; you find a solid structure, fix what's outdated, stage it beautifully, and sell it for 10x. The same is happening with businesses. Digital Infrastructure is Fueling the Fire Platforms like Acquire.com (global), Velocity, Indie VC, and India's growing network of business deal marketplaces are making business buyouts as easy as ordering on Amazon — but with ROI. First-generation business owners, particularly in Tier 2 and 3 India, are actively looking to exit, creating a rare pipeline of pre-validated MSMEs waiting to be digitally reborn. The New Startup Playbook: Acquire. Optimize. Scale. Here's how modern entrepreneurs are hacking their way to success: Identify undervalued but loved brands (good reviews, loyal customers, poor tech stack). Buy smart using a mix of upfront cash and performance-based earn-outs. Digitize ops: CRM, e-commerce, subscription models, WhatsApp Commerce. Rebrand with better storytelling and influencer collaborations. Grow 5x using digital ads, marketplaces, and international expansion. As India gears up for MSME Day, this trend underscores a bigger opportunity: the revival and reinvention of India's 63 million MSMEs by a new generation of acquirers who don't want to reinvent the wheel — they want to turbocharge it. It's not just a trend. It's a shift in mindset. Entrepreneurship is no longer about creating from scratch — it's about transforming what already works. (The author is Gaurav Bhagat, Founder, Gaurav Bhagat Academy, and the views expressed in this article are his own)