A large section of people in China trusts traditional medicines. Popularised as a mainstream healthcare category, these drugs have built a $50 Bn opportunity in the country’s $80 Bn pharma market. But, the situation is starkly different in India, where age-old ayurveda controls merely a fourth of a $40 Bn market for pharma products, despite its deep cultural roots.
Various reasons, spanning from an aging populace with a median age of 40.6 years to its innate preference for natural alternatives, backed this surge in Traditional Chinese Medicines (TCM). But, what stood out most strikingly was a lack of rigorous, evidence-based scientific research in India. Ameve Sharma spotted a dearth of modern, science-backed ayurvedic brands that could be built on this gap.
He launched Kapiva as a direct-to-consumer (D2C) ayurvedic brand in 2016 and rolled out the first batch of products a year later. Nine years on, the startup offers SKUs across wellness, diabetes care, heart health, and gym nutrition. The company did business of INR 342 Cr in FY25 and aims at a revenue of INR 600 Cr this fiscal, with losses narrowing to single digits.
Such financials helped Kapiva garner nearly $120 Mn so far from investors like Fireside Ventures, 3one4 Capital, 360 One Asset, and Vertex Ventures, shows Inc42 Data Labs.
Despite the early growth momentum, the ayurvedic D2C brand is likely to find a gamut of giants in fray and face headwinds from a younger population, averagely aged 35 years and used to lightning-fast results. Modern medicines offer quick relief from illnesses, whereas ayurveda is typically believed to be demanding more time, patience, and consistency. Heavy metals, often traced in ayurvedic drugs exceeding the safe limit, also put off the younger Indian consumers.
Can Sharma steer his startup through these challenges? Inc42 sought to look at how Kapiva diagnosed the ailment, read the pulse of the market, and rewrote its prescription.
A Known Terrain, But A Road Less Travelled
For Ameve Sharma, the brain behind Kapiva, it wasn’t hard to spot opportunities in ayurveda because of the legacy of Baidyanath, one of India’s oldest and most renowned brands in the traditional medicines space, he carried in his genes. “I always knew that ayurveda would be pivotal in my career, no matter what I do,” shared the management graduate from France in a candid conversation at his Bengaluru office.
The turning point came when Sharma joined McKinsey as a consultant after spending five years in the family business. He was enthused to see how young startups scaled rapidly, how capital flowed through venture funding, and how structured processes unlocked exponential growth. His global exposure and interactions with CXOs of hyper-scaled companies abroad sharpened his understanding of scale. This is when he connected with Shrey Badhani, then an associate with Bain & Company with exposure to private equity and startups.
What drove Sharma and Badhani closer was a strong conviction that a new-age ayurvedic brand, rooted in science and modern branding, had massive untapped potential.
Sharma, however, realised that bringing startup-style agility and experimentation within a century-old family business wasn’t easy. “When you’re part of a family business, there are multiple stakeholders involved, and it’s not always flexible enough to execute bold ideas,” he said.
Kapiva was born as a bootstrapped startup out of the shared belief of Sharma and Badhani and later on partners from Fireside Ventures chipped in as its first institutional investors.
Kapiva isn’t alone in the field. Although the Indian startup ecosystem has seen a surge in ayurveda startups, most are concentrated in beauty and personal care, which leaves Sharma’s products at a vantage spot.
Course Correction Leads To D2C Pivot
Sharma and Badhani invested their personal savings to start with contract manufacturing of popular ayurvedic wellness products. The initial portfolio comprised supplements for diabetes and heart ailments.
Sluggish business in the first two years, however, didn’t deter the founders from sourcing high-quality raw materials and achieving standardisation. “These two areas often become a bottleneck for traditional ayurveda to prosper,” Sharma said.
Once the procurement process was streamlined, Kapiva moved towards manufacturing products based on its own formulations. Sharma’s experience at Baidyanath proved critical in this phase. The founders experimented with an offline-first approach by launching ayurvedic clinics in Mumbai, after bagging INR 4.4 Cr from a clutch of angel investors.
The clinics, however, soon proved to be capital-intensive, limited in reach, and inefficient as a branding channel. The learning was simple: ayurveda education and brand building needed scale that offline ventures could not provide.
“No matter how experienced you are, there will always be gaps,” Sharma admitted. By 2018, Kapiva made a decisive shift. It shut down the clinics and pivoted to an online-first direct-to-consumer (D2C) model, selling through its own website and later expanding to ecommerce marketplaces like Amazon and Flipkart.
This transition coincided with the rise of India’s D2C market into a $100 Bn opportunity, powered by more than 50,000 digital-first brands. Kapiva’s belief that digital platforms were the most effective way to educate consumers and build trust around ayurveda was shaped by over 427 Mn ecommerce users and nearly 294 Mn active online shoppers.
Doubling Down On R&D, Aiming For The Scale
This philosophy led Kapiva to significantly ramp up its R&D efforts. Between 2019 and 2021, the company hired a dedicated R&D head and built a team of 15-20 researchers focussed purely on product development and began conducting clinical trials, including in vitro and in vivo studies.
In 2022, Kapiva raised $28 Mn in a Series C round from OrbiMed, a New York-based healthcare-focussed investor. OrbiMed gave it access to global healthcare expertise that helped Kapiva introduce advanced practices such as DNA fingerprinting, expand its R&D centre, and strengthen its scientific workforce.
Products from Kapiva’s labs now undergo up to 10 levels of testing to ensure higher efficacy and consistency. The startup never ceased to invest heavily in R&D. A $60 Mn Series D infusion from 360 One Asset and Vertex Ventures last year is expected to further bolster its R&D, manufacturing capabilities, and marketing activities.
As all these began translating into growth, Kapiva aided it with scale. Sharma believes that mentioning clinical trials and certifications on product packaging helped build consumer trust and drove repeat purchases.
Since FY23, Kapiva revenues have nearly doubled every year, driven largely by repeat consumption. “While growing up in Kolkata, we always saw how effective ayurvedic medicines were. People would regularly come to our house asking for treatments,” he recalled.
Category expansion too helped Kapiva unlock various growth layers. While it now operates across gym nutrition, skincare, and weight management, nearly 90% of its revenue still comes from heart health, diabetes care, and gym supplements.
R&D At Core, Strategy Aided By Distribution, Marketing
Kapiva generates about 35% of its revenue from its own website, 40% from online marketplaces, including quick commerce platforms, and the remaining 25% from offline channels. Offline retail, particularly department stores, turned out to be the fastest-growing segment as the company scales its physical presence across the country.
Content-led education remains central to Kapiva’s customer acquisition strategy. The focus on video content and consumer awareness has led to a steady rise in marketing spend from INR 17 Cr in FY21 to INR 188 Cr in FY25. On the supply side, Kapiva works closely with farmers through contract farming to ensure consistent access to high-quality herbs.The company’s average order value stands at INR 1,000.
Kapiva is also aiming at international expansion as the $20.42 Bn global ayurveda market grows 19.72% a year to reach $85.83 Bn by 2033 with rising prevalence of chronic diseases, growing awareness in ayurvedic benefits, and strong adoption and acceptance across consumer groups. The startup is exporting to the US and the UK and plans to enter Germany in the coming weeks.
Badhani has left Kapiva to start something on his own, but the journey that he and Sharma had started continued and the company plans to go public in the next two to three years.
The government push through the Ministry of Ayush, covering ayurveda, yoga, naturopathy, unani, siddha, and homeopathy, has bolstered a manufacturing industry of $24 Bn. Combined with the Ayush service sector valuation of $26 Bn, the industry’s overall worth has exceeded $50 Bn, paving the way for startup ventures like Kapiva to secure exponential growth.
“If you are doing something that genuinely excites you, and you know you can’t do it within the family business, then you should start your own,” Sharma said, talking of an INR 50 Cr fund Kapiva has set up to help budding entrepreneurs who are building in the ayurveda space to grow. “For wider adoption, we would need more players in this space. We need to grow together.”
