KIVA, a Gurugram based startup in the modern ayurvedic health juice space, has recently raised an undisclosed amount of funding from several marquee investors, including:
- Entrepreneurs in India and Silicon Valley like Pankaj Chaddah (Co-founder, Zomato), Mohit Garg (Co-founder, MindTickle) and Amit Singal (Co-founder, Startup Buddy).
- CEOs like Rajesh Sud (CEO, Max Life Insurance Pvt Ltd) and Rajit Mehta (CEO, Max Healthcare).
- Top executives like Vineet Mitera (Chief Investment Officer, Ward Ferry private equity), and Partners at McKinsey & Company.
KIVA plans to use these funds for new product development, brand building and expansion to Mumbai and Bengaluru markets.
Launched by Shalabh Gupta, an ex-McKinsey & IIM-A alumnus, KIVA envisions making Ayurveda easier, more accessible and fun for millennials. The young brand has been successful in generating tremendous traction since its launch in August 2016.
KIVA is pioneering “Ayurveda 2.0” through tasty, modern ayurveda products with a twist. These include India’s first ready-to-drink ayurvedic shots and a soon-launching range of tasty ayurvedic bars and candies, currently being piloted.
The broader Ayurveda category KIVA operates in isalready an INR 40-50,000 crore market and among the fastest-growing FMCG categories at 25-30% per year. This larger Ayurveda space counts Dabur, Patanjali and Emami as major players.
“We see immense growth potential because KIVA is not just targeting current consumers of Ayurveda, but with its innovative products, it is winning those consumers who today know about Ayurveda, but do not adopt it, making the addressable market even larger. We also see huge scope to build this into a truly global brand – Ayurveda is today where Yoga was 10 years ago!” says Shalabh Gupta.
About KIVA
KIVA (a brand by Good Vitamin Foods Pvt. Ltd.) was launched in August 2016 with a pilot in two stores in Gurgaon. Since then, it has expanded to 150+ stores and an online presence across all major channels (including Amazon and its own website at www.kivalife.in).
The current product portfolio includes the flagship Ayurvedic “shots” in 7 variants, ranging from Lemon-Honey-Cinnamonto Triphala. KIVA is currently piloting a range of tasty ayurvedic bars and candies to be launched by February 2018.
About Shalabh Gupta, Founder
KIVA was founded by Shalabh Gupta, who studied at IIT Delhi and IIM Ahmedabad, and then worked with management consultancy McKinsey & Co for 5 years across India and the US. Seeing unused bottles of traditional Amla and Aloe Vera juices in his own kitchen, he started KIVA because he believed there was a need to make Ayurveda more exciting for millions of customers, including himself.
Investor’s View
KIVA is a very very promising brand. Ayurveda is India’s past, present and future and as world adopts more natural and organic foods and beverages, KIVA as a ayurvadic beverage brand of shots has the potential to be a leader and become a daily consumption FMCG product.- Amit Singal, Co-founder, Startup Buddy.
