Indian startups are projected to account for 4%-5% of the GDP over the next five years. What’s more, industry experts predict as much as 180 billion dollars of investment in the Indian startup ecosystem by the end of 2023. Safe to say, the ‘Make In India’ initiative has never been stronger, sprouting new entrepreneurs around the country in sectors across the board.
From advisors and investors to buyers and customers, to viewers at home too, the compelling story of Made In India, Made For India, and Made By India has takers in every corner. Need proof? Shark Tank India season 2 viewership was 7 times higher than any Indian TV series; and, the show clocked 3x revenue compared to the first season.
11 Indie Brands To Watch Out For In 2023
So, this 74th Republic Day Of India, we’re celebrating the spirit of entrepreneurship by spotlighting 11 Indie brands launched in the last decade that should be on your watch list in 2023.
1. Brand: Fix My Curls; Launched: 2019
Founder Anshita Mehrotra is a 23-year-old curly haired-girl who loves to read, write, and create content around textured hair and beauty standards. She was inspired by her own personal struggles and has gone on to create affordable and quality hair care products for curly hair girls in India.
Target Audience: Women, men, and all other genders between 18 and 45 years across all hair types, including those with textured hair, this means hair that is NOT pin-straight, if you have frizz, waves, curls, or coils, Fix My Curls is the brand for you. They target people who love clean beauty, and prefer their hair care with no nasties and no animal testing!
Brand USP: Got frizz? Meet Fix My Curls. The brand is a one-stop solution for curly and wavy-haired girls who need a little help embracing their mane! The brand will be right by your side during your wash days, styling needs, and satin accessorising days, not to mention, bad hair days, too.
Brand Offerings: Cleansing & Moisturising Shampoos, Deep Conditioners, Hair Masks, Styling Creams, Styling Gels, Hair Oils, Hair Mousses, Satin Accessories like Pillowcases, Bonnets, & Scrunchies
Bestsellers: Curl Quenching Duo, Curl Quenching Hair Gelly, Leave-In Cream, & Weightless Whip Volumising Mousse
Average Price: The price ranges between Rs 285 and Rs 4,000
Available On: The brand is available through its website and Instagram, apart from other e-commerce portals like Amazon, Nykaa, Lockenbox (Germany), & Vanity Wagon. Offline, you can find them at Sublime Life Store in Gurgaon.
Checkout Fix My Curls here
2. Brand: Shararat; Launched: 2016
The brand is the brainchild of Shanky & Avinash Sharma, who decided to realise their entrepreneurial dreams together. While Shanky believes in keeping it simple, Avinash has a naughty streak. The contrasting qualities they bring to the table led to the creation of this loungewear and intimate wear brand, which is a blend of little fun and naughtiness, and lots of comfort and happiness.
Target Audience: Women between the ages of 25 and 40, newlyweds, and married couples who are looking for affordable and fun intimate wear and loungewear.
Brand USP: The brand believes that for women, self-love should be non-negotiable. Akin to giving yourself the warm hug and comfort that you deserve, Shararat offers easy-to-wear intimate wear and loungewear that is like a second skin. The collection is fun, playful, sexy, naughty, high-quality, and yes, affordable too.
Brand Offerings: An extensive range of sleepwear, loungewear, maternity wear and intimate wear collections based on mood-boosting dopamine fashion.
Average Price: Between Rs 700 and Rs 1,500
Bestsellers: Women’s Knee-Length Baby Doll Dresses
Availability: The brand is available online through its website and Instagram as well as digital e-commerce platforms like AJIO, Myntra, Flipkart, Amazon, etc.
Checkout Shararat here
3. Brand: Slurrp Farm; Launched: 2016
Founders Meghana Narayan, Shauravi Malik, and Umang Bhattacharyya noticed a lack of reliable children’s food in the market. They wanted to offer packaged options that were enriched with nutritious ingredients and, at the same time, appealed to children’s ever-changing taste buds. As a result, they came up with the idea of bridging the apparent gap in the marketplace with their entrepreneurial venture.
Target Audience: Parents of toddlers and kids, and also mums
Brand USP: The conscious, child-focused brand combines healthy ingredients like ragi, millets, jowar, lentils, oats, amaranth, nuts, butter, fruits, and vegetables, with flavours that appeal to children, like chocolate, to introduce a twist to children’s food that is usually always bland.
Brand Offerings: The product mix of the brand includes cereals, pasta, noodles, pancake mixes, cakes, milk mixes, upma, and dosa for kids. The brand focuses on natural and healthy food for children that are also high in taste, so they don’t lose interest during meal and snack time. The brand also has options that are free of salt, sugar, gluten, and dairy.
Average Price: The price ranges between Rs 150 and Rs 1,000
Bestsellers: Bestseller Super Combo: Immunity Booster, Bestseller Super Combo: Pancake Lovers, Bestseller Super Combo: Cereals for Little Ones, & Bestseller Super Combo: Millet Pancake (Pack of 2)
Availability: The products are available through their website and Instagram
4. Brand: Juicy Chemistry; Launched: 2014
Founders Megha & Pritesh Asher are childhood best friends who turned life partners, which further culminated into a business partnership. Megha is the COO of the brand and handles all things content—PR, social media, marketing, etc. On the other hand, Pritesh is the CEO and looks into the administrative, finance, and back-end side of things.
Target Audience: Beauty and environmentally-conscious men and women across ages
Brand USP: The idea of Juicy Chemistry originated from the need to make products that harnessed natural ingredients, which could deliver results. They work with organic-approved farms that cultivate ingredients with care, steering clear of GMOs, pesticides, and fertilisers. The brand uses processes like cold-pressing, steam distillation, sedimentation, and natural filtration, and manufactures products in small batches to maintain quality.
Brand Offerings: The brand offers 100+ certified organic products across the face, body, and hair care, which are clinically tested, natural and organic, cruelty-free and handmade.
Bestsellers: Chilli, Horsetail & Blackseed Hair Growth Oil, Bulgarian Rosewater, and Blood Orange & Rosehip Lip Scrub.
Average Price: The price ranges between Rs 120 and Rs 3,000
Availability: The brand is available on its own website, and platforms like Nykaa and Sublime Life
Checkout Juicy Chemistry’s story here
5. Brand: Fizzy Goblet; Launched: 2014
Founder Laksheeta Govil is a graduate of Fashion Designing from Pearl Academy, New Delhi. She had once chanced upon an absolutely quirky and gorgeous pair of shoes, which turned out to be expensive. So, she thought of creating something similar all by herself. Armed with a paintbrush, paints, and a pair of snow-white sneakers, she created Fiery Fiesta, the first ever Fizzy Goblet pair, and since then there was no turning back for her.
Target Audience: Every woman with a soft spot for quirky fashion
Brand USP: The brand acts as an extension of the personality of its wearer with its kitsch product mix. From daily wear to those for special occasions like weddings, anniversaries, and birthdays – there is a Fizzy Goblet for every day, occasion, and mood.
Brand Offerings: The product mix includes evergreen footwear styles like heels, loafers, mules, sliders, sneakers, and flats, among others, laced with sketches, prints, chumkis, pom poms, tassels, and other props.
Bestsellers: The Athiya Shoe, Ruby Rouge, & Pixie Dust
Average Price: The price varies between Rs 2,990 and Rs 4,990
Availability: They are avail online via their website and Instagram as well as their offline stores in cities across India
6. Brand: Bliss Club; Launched: 2019
Founder Minu Margeret realised the gap in the market for the right activewear and decided to launch her own venture. Rather than just focusing on ‘pink’ and ’shrink’ women’s activewear, she decided to make her brand more exclusive by offering a varied range of sizes.
Target Audience: Fitness-conscious women looking for activewear, leggings and tops that are not just the right fit, but don’t compromise on style as well.
Brand USP: The brand makes a conscious effort to reach out to every body type with its product mix, without compromising on comfort and fashion. Their influencer marketing has been one for the books, serving as a great case study to break into an otherwise cluttered market.
Brand Offerings: Leggings, tops, and sports bras, shorts, capris, & flared bottoms – suitable for every fitness routine, of sizes ranging from XS to XXXXL
Bestsellers: At-Ease Cotton Knit Tops in varied colours, Power Up Compression Leggings, & The Ultimate Criss-Cross Sports Bra
Price: The price ranges between Rs 850 and Rs 3,500
Availability: The brand is available through its website and Instagram
7. Brand: Proactive For Her; Launched: 2020
Founder Achitha Jacob has worked in the healthcare industry, serving in leading roles in many Fortune 500 companies. The IIT alumnus dropped out of Harvard Business School to build Proactive For Her, a platform where women can turn to for their reproductive and sexual health care without judgement.
Target Audience: Women looking for healthcare consultations for health conditions typical to the gender like irregular periods, breast cancer, etc.
Brand USP: Proactive For Her is a digital platform for women, offering accessible, personalised, confidential, judgement-free, and dependable healthcare solutions. It gives women the opportunity to seek help with healthcare issues typical to the gender – health conditions that are marred by social taboos – which make them apprehensive about consulting a doctor. The digital platform offers them the convenience of keeping their identity confidential, giving them a safe and secure place to get themselves treated.
Brand Offerings: Reliable and safe consultation services from reliable healthcare experts, medical tests, and subsequent treatment for diagnosed women-oriented health conditions. The services are related to sexual health, menstrual health, reproductive health, hair and skin care, and vaccinations, among others.
Bestsellers: STI/STD Test, Iron Deficiency Test, Breast Cancer Screening, & Annual Full Body Checkups
Average Price: The price of tests vary between Rs 450 and Rs 35,000
Availability: The tests and consultations can be booked through their website
8. Brand: Your Dreamz Event Specialists; Launched: 2022
Built by two trailblazing women, Prachi Oza is a passionate Events Planner and Executor. She puts her creative steak to good use by planning spectacular and uniquely planned events, based on the individual preferences of her clients. On the other hand, Suchita Swaika is an entrepreneur with a fabulous aesthetic and creative streak. Her display of creativity and attention to detail ensures that an event is successfully executed and enjoyed by all.
Target Audience: Across all age groups
Brand USP: They offer end-to-end solutions to make every party, birthday, anniversary, corporate event and wedding a success. With custom solutions for every budget, the brand is making waves in the space of private events.
Brand Offerings: Planning Invitations, Decor, Catering, Artist Management, Guest Management, & Gifting for every event and occasion
Bestsellers: Children’s birthday parties, milestone celebrations, pre-wedding functions, destination events & house parties
Average Price: Rs 50,000 upwards
Availability: You can connect with them for bookings and enquiries through Instagram
Checkout Your Dreamz Event Specialists here
9. Brand: Blue Tokai; Launched: 2013
Founders Namrata Asthana & Matt Chitharanjan met in Chennai for the first time, for the purpose of work. When they moved to Delhi later, they heavily missed the strong aroma of freshly brewed coffee that reminded them of home. The idea lingered and soon they decided to launch their venture in a city that has grown up on instant coffee.
Target Audience: Everything with coffee beans that appeals to a coffee aficionado
Brand USP: The brand sells premium coffee products, all supplied from their own 23 farms and estates across the country. The beans are grown in multiple estates spread across the South Indian states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, under strict supervision and processed and packaged with care to preserve their natural flavour and aroma.
Brand Offerings: Premium coffee products, from freshly roasted and ground coffee beans to cold brews, easy-pour sachets, brew bags and starter kits, as well as equipment for preparing and serving the brew.
Bestsellers: Vienna Roast, Attikan Estate, Silver Oak Cafe Blend, & French Roast
Average Price: The price ranges between Rs 400 for the brew and Rs 1,30,000 for a brewing equipment
Availability: Brand products are available on their website and Instagram, while you can locate their cafes in Delhi, Mumbai, Gurgaon, Bengaluru, Kolkata, Noida, and Hyderabad.
10. Brand: Salad Condoms; Launched: 2021
Founder Aruna Chawla is a consumer psychologist turned entrepreneur. She started the brand with a simple goal–to create a world where buying condoms is not a nightmare. Chawla was fascinated by the sexual wellness industry that offered high potential, repeat sales, and yet, is hush-hush.
Target Audience: Every individual with an active sex life
Brand USP: The brand’s condoms are vegan and nature-friendly. They are produced using natural rubber latex obtained from sustainable rubber forests in India. These condoms have zero unsafe synthetics, or fragrances, and are flavour free.
Brand Offerings: Salad offers ultra-thin condoms that are non-toxic, eco-conscious, and easy to use. They’re so thin you’ll barely feel them. The brand claims that its condoms are lab-tested and bedroom-tried for ultra-sensitivity.
Bestseller: Salad Classic Ultra Thin Condoms (Pack Of 10)
Average Price: Rs 9.15 per condom
Availability: The condoms are available through their website and other online platforms like Vanity Wagon
11. Brand: Cambio; Launched: 2020
Founder Bhagyashree Soni is a Surat-based Chartered Accountant turned entrepreneur who feels passionate about changing the way a large section of the Indian population perceives the subject of menstruation. She strongly believes that monthly bleeding is as natural and organic as breathing, and hence should be seen the same way. That edged her on to start a brand that specialises in menstrual hygiene products.
Target Audience: Any menstruator
Brand USP: Cambio seeks to offer women a period-positive experience, without harming the environment, with its comfortable, organic, plastic-free, and sustainable menstrual products. Cambio puts deep thought and effort to make “those days of the month” comparatively easy, as apparent from the applicator that comes with a pack of tampons, keeping in mind first-time users. Each tampon is also accompanied by a pouch for safe disposal.
Brand Offerings: Organic period products for the menstruation population that includes tampons, sanitary napkins, and menstrual cups, as well as hygiene products like panty liners
Bestsellers: 100% Organic Cotton Pads, Menstrual Cups With Pouch, & 100% Organic Cotton Tampons
Average Price: The products vary between Rs 300 and Rs 3,000
Availability: The brand is available through its website and Instagram
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