New Delhi, June 29 -- Belgian investment firm Sofina has made a liquidity move from an India consumer portfolio company, in what is likely its first monetisation activity in the country this year after making a partial exit from digital payments company Pine Labs Ltd late last year.

The Brussels-based firm, which primarily invests in consumer, retail, education, healthcare and digital businesses, sold part of its stake in Honasa Consumer Ltd last week. It offloaded about 4.18 million shares of the company behind beauty products retailer Mamaearth for Rs 177.2 crore ($18.76 million), stock-exchange data show. This likely brought down its stake in the Mamaearth parent to around 2% from 3.29% at the end of March.

This is the fourth monetisation move by Sofina from Honasa and takes its total harvest thus far to about Rs 926 crore, per data collated by VCCircle.

Sofina first invested in Honasa in March 2021, picking up shares from the company's co-founders, some individual investors and VC firms Fireside Ventures and Stellaris Venture Partners. A few months later, it made a primary infusion into the company in a Series E round and then followed it up with a small secondary tranche in March 2022. In total, Sofina invested around Rs 331 crore to buy a stake of approximately 9.5% in the company.

Honasa made its public market debut in November 2023. Its IPO included a fresh issue of Rs 365 crore and an offer for sale of Rs 1,336.4 crore by Sofina, Stellaris, company co-founders and some individual investors. Sofina sold shares worth Rs 310 crore in the IPO. The investment firm then offloaded shares worth about Rs 141.1 crore in June 2024 and Rs 298 crore in September that year, when India's stock markets touched a record high.

Overall, Sofina has so far taken out Rs 926 crore from Honasa, or about $108 million based on the forex rates prevailing at the time of the share sales. Its remaining stake is currently worth around Rs 290 crore, back-of-the-envelope calculations show.

The latest partial exit helped Sofina log a multiple on invested capital of about 3.2x and an internal rate of return (IRR) of approximately 25-26% in rupee terms, according to VCCircle estimates based on the first-in, first-out methodology. That beats the minimum 20% IRR that private equity and venture capital investors typically chase in rupee terms at the fund level. Its IRR in dollar terms would be around 19-20%, beating the 15% benchmark.

Sofina's overall realised IRR thus far would be far higher-around 55% in rupee terms and 48% in dollar terms-thanks to its quick partial exit during the IPO and in 2024, when Honasa's shares were at a high.

Honasa's stock hit its record high of Rs 546.50 in September 2024. But it slipped in the following months, in line with the broader weakness in the stock markets. The stock touched a low of Rs 190 apiece in April 2025. The shares recovered thereafter but struggled to stay above the IPO price of Rs 324 until April this year. Since then, however, the shares have jumped by a fourth and touched a one-year high of Rs 449 apiece on Monday.

Apart from Honasa, Sofina made a partial exit from Pine Labs in November last year through the fintech's IPO. Sofina, which is a limited partner in venture capital firm Peak XV Partners' funds, also clocked a partial exit from Lenskart last year, according to its annual report.

Sofina's India portfolio includes a bunch of other companies including fintech unicorn Cred, life sciences company MedGenome, women's fashion brand Lyskraft, non-bank lender Finova Capital, education company K12 Techno, and agritech company DeHaat. This year, Sofina made a follow-on investment in healthy food brand The Whole Truth as part of the Series D round and joined Peak XV in betting on quick-commerce startup FirstClub in a Series B round.

Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from VC Circle.