What Happens When Men Build for Women’s Innerwear? Ask Krvvy

There are categories in India that are loud, visible, and over-explained. Beauty is one. Food is another. Even personal care, once discreet, has found a confident public voice. 

Women’s innerwear is not one of them. 

It exists in a strange duality. It is essential, purchased repeatedly, worn every day, yet rarely discussed with the same ease as adjacent categories. For decades, it has remained tucked between functionality and discomfort—physically, culturally, and commercially. 

It is into this space that Krvvy entered in May 2024. 

Not with spectacle, but with a question that seems obvious only in hindsight: what if everyday comfort, rather than aspiration or aesthetics, was the core of the category? 

The question becomes more interesting when you consider who is asking it. 

Krvvy has been built by two young men—Yash Goyal and Anant Bhardwaj—neither of whom came from the apparel industry, and both of whom had to first confront the awkwardness of the idea before they could begin to build it. 

“When Yash first suggested women’s innerwear, my reaction was, ‘Aur kuch nahi mila kya?’” Bhardwaj said in a conversation with OPEN Digital.  

It was not a joke. It was an instinct. 

The Uncomfortable Entry Point 

The hesitation was not about the market. That part was clear. 

India’s innerwear market is estimated at nearly ₹50,000 crore, with women’s innerwear forming a substantial share. It is a category defined not by one-time purchases, but by habit. It is also one that has remained, in many ways, under-designed. 

The hesitation was about proximity. 

For two male founders, building in this space meant operating within a category where they were not the primary users, where feedback had to be actively sought rather than assumed, and where credibility could not be borrowed—it had to be constructed. 

The way they addressed this was not through positioning, but through process. 

“We spent close to six months just on research,” Bhardwaj said. “Talking to women across age groups.” 

The conversations were not outsourced. They were conducted within their own networks—friends, sisters, mothers—creating a feedback loop that was both personal and unfiltered. 

“We had very open conversations,” he said. 

What they encountered was not dissatisfaction in the way consumer surveys often capture it. It was something quieter. 

Adjustment. 

A category where women had learned to accommodate the product, rather than expect the product to adapt to them. 

Two Different Ways of Seeing the Same Gap 

The founders arrived at the same opportunity from two different directions. 

Bhardwaj’s understanding was shaped by his time in the content ecosystem. His early career unfolded in Mumbai during the transition from TikTok to Instagram Reels, a period that revealed how quickly consumer behaviour could shift when platforms changed. 

“This was around the time TikTok got banned and Instagram Reels picked up,” he said. “I got deep exposure to how content works, especially in tier II and tier III markets.” 

He saw how conversations that were once private were beginning to surface in public spaces—body positivity, comfort, and everyday realities that had previously remained unarticulated. 

Goyal, in contrast, approached the category through structure. 

His time at JP Morgan and later at Stride Ventures, where he worked with consumer startups like Sugar Cosmetics, mCaffeine, Foxtale, and Pilgrim, gave him a vantage point into how brands scale—and where they fail. 

“That gave me a strong understanding of how businesses are built, how capital is deployed, and what it really takes to scale a brand,” he said. 

When the two reconnected post-COVID, the timing aligned with a broader shift in India’s consumer economy. 

“We saw a massive rise in consumer brands,” Goyal said. “It was clear that the opportunity was real.” 

What stood out was not just the opportunity, but the nature of it. 

“The market was large but dominated by a few legacy players,” he said. “There was scale, but not enough differentiation in the premium-comfort space.” 

What They Chose Not to Build 

Before Krvvy became an innerwear brand, it was almost something else. 

FMCG was considered, as it is by most founders looking for scale. It offered predictability, distribution logic, and a familiar playbook. 

It also offered very little room to stand out. 

“We didn’t want to build just another brand,” Bhardwaj said. 

This decision—to not enter a crowded category—was as important as the decision to enter innerwear. 

Because Krvvy, at its core, is not attempting to reinvent fashion. 

It is attempting to correct a habit. 

Designing for Repeat, Not Desire 

The language of most innerwear brands tends to oscillate between two extremes—utility and aspiration. 

Krvvy chose neither. 

“We were very clear—this is not a fashion-first brand,” Bhardwaj said. 

Instead, the focus was on building an everyday essentials brand—one that would not rely on novelty or seasonal relevance. 

The design choices reflect this intent. Minimal aesthetics. Skin-tone palettes. An absence of loud prints. 

“If someone likes one product, they should want three more of the same,” he said. 

This is not a creative constraint. It is a business model. 

“Repeat is everything in this category,” Goyal said. “You can drive the first purchase through marketing, but the product has to bring the customer back.” 

In a category defined by habit, the second purchase matters more than the first. 

The Long Work of Making a Simple Product 

If the idea appears simple, the execution is not. 

“Supply chain, by far, was the biggest challenge,” Goyal said. 

The company spent nearly ten months building its manufacturing base, navigating a system where the level of quality they were aiming for was not easily available. 

“The quality we wanted simply wasn’t available easily in India,” he said. 

Bhardwaj described the process with less restraint. 

“There were days we were just running around like headless chickens trying to find the right partners.” 

The option to source from China was available. It is, in many ways, the default for early-stage consumer brands seeking speed and efficiency. 

They chose not to.  “With China, MOQ is high, risk is high, and flexibility is low,” Goyal said. 

There was also a deeper misalignment. 

“Indian body types, climate, lifestyle—everything is different,” Bhardwaj said. “You can’t just import and expect it to work.” 

So they built from scratch. 

Research and development remained in-house. Manufacturing was outsourced, but tightly controlled. The process was slower, but it aligned with their core thesis—product quality as the foundation of the brand. 

Selling a Product People Don’t Talk About 

Marketing innerwear in India requires a certain restraint. 

The category does not lend itself easily to impulse buying or casual discovery. It is considered, personal, and often shaped by habit. 

Krvvy’s approach reflects this. 

“From day one, we knew content would play a central role,” Bhardwaj said. 

But content, in this case, is not about visibility alone. 

“We were clear that we wouldn’t create content just to follow trends,” he said. 

In the early months, the brand relied heavily on organic content—shot in-house, built through collaborations, and driven by a mutual exchange of value between creators and the brand. 

“For the first two to three months, it was mostly organic,” he said. 

A moment of scale came unexpectedly. 

“A large creator organically mentioned our product in a YouTube video,” Bhardwaj said. “That drove a massive spike in traffic.” 

The lesson was immediate, but not misleading. 

“Marketing can drive the first purchase,” Goyal said. “But repeat purchase comes only from product quality and experience.” 

The company’s marketing spend remains at around 3–4% of revenue—a deliberate constraint rather than a limitation. 

Growth Without Noise 

Krvvy’s numbers reflect both early traction and the pace of scale. 

The company claims to have reported ₹1.35 crore in revenue for FY25, followed by rapid growth to ₹6 crore within seven months of operations, with monthly peaks crossing ₹1 crore . 

It has served over 75,000 customers across India, Goyal said.

What is more interesting is where that demand comes from. 

“We see strong demand from metro cities like Mumbai and Bengaluru,” Goyal said. “But Tier 2 and Tier 3 markets also contribute significantly—nearly 50% in some cases.” 

There is also traction from regions like the North East, pointing to a category that is geographically diverse, even if it is not always publicly visible. 

Distribution has followed demand. 

Krvvy sells through its own website, as well as marketplaces like Myntra, Nykaa, Amazon, and quick commerce platforms. 

“This is a high-intent category,” Goyal said. “When a customer needs the product, they need it immediately.” 

Community as Quiet Infrastructure 

One of the more understated aspects of Krvvy’s growth is its community. 

“We have built a focus group of over 500 people,” Goyal said. “Almost every product decision is backed by feedback from this group.” 

This is not community in the conventional sense of engagement or brand affinity. 

It is infrastructure. 

A system through which the product is continuously refined, validated, and adjusted. 

Offline events—yoga sessions, meet-ups—extend this relationship beyond transactions, but their role is less about visibility and more about continuity. 

“It’s difficult to measure directly,” he said. “But you see it in organic growth.” 

Capital, Discipline, and the Next Phase 

Krvvy’s early phase was deliberately lean. 

The company began with a team of four, operating from home. Bhardwaj moved back home to reduce costs, while the founders focused on building the product. 

“Early stage, you don’t need luxury—you need focus,” he said. 

It has since raised ₹6.1 crore in pre-seed funding from Titan Capital and All In Capital, along with ₹1.2 crore from Shark Tank India at a ₹40 crore valuation. 

The team has grown to around twenty people. 

The next phase is defined by scale. 

“We are targeting around ₹200 crore ARR over the next three years,” Goyal said. 

Offline retail and global expansion are part of the roadmap, but they remain conditional on execution. 

What This Story Is Really About 

It is tempting to frame Krvvy as a story about two men entering a women’s category. 

That is, in some ways, the most visible layer. 

But it is not the most important one. 

The more relevant story is about a category that has operated for years on quiet compromise, and a generation of founders who are beginning to question that compromise—not through disruption in the traditional sense, but through correction. 

“A scalable, repeat-driven business,” Goyal said. 

“A brand that genuinely improves everyday comfort,” Bhardwaj added. 

Between those two statements lies a simple idea. 

That in a category defined by daily use, the most meaningful innovation is not what people notice immediately, but what they stop noticing altogether. 

And in that absence—in the removal of discomfort—there is, perhaps, the beginning of a different kind of brand.