Mumbai-based Kapiva Ayurveda is eyeing 20-25 per cent growth in sale of its premium healthcare products comprising juices, capsules and oils.
According to Shrey Badhani, Founder and COO, Kapiva Ayurveda, healthcare currently accounts for 60-70 per cent of the company’s total sales, with the remaining coming from personal care and nutrition products.
“We have been growing at 20-25 per cent on month-on-month basis. We are hopeful of being able to achieve monthly sales of ₹1 crore in the next six months,” Badhani told
Kapiva, which claims to be a start-up backed by a 100-year old legacy — The Baidyanath Group, caters to the new-age consumers and seeks to merge the ancient Ayurvedic tradition of Baidyanath with modern-day science and technology.
“Kapiva is Baidyanath’s strategy to reach out to the younger group of consumers who have slightly different set of problems and requirements from Ayurveda,” he said.
While Baidyanath caters to the mass market in terms of pricing of its products, Kapiva operates primarily in the premium segment.
The company has close to 200 GMP-certified (good manufacturing practice) products including capsules, oils and syrups, derived primarily from aloe vera, amla, ashwagandha, brahmi and garcinia. It caters to problems ranging from cough and cold to diabetes and digestive system ailments and skin and hair issues.
According to Badhani, the total natural care segment in India, which includes ayurveda and herbal, is estimated to be ₹40,000-45,000 crore. Medical or healthcare products account for nearly 25 per cent of the total market (close to ₹10,000 crore).
The company, which entered the segment about a year ago, expects to achieve a “sizeable share” of the market in the next five-six years.
Personal care marketA recent report by consumer data analytics firm Nielsen India estimates that the natural segment in India’s personal care market, which includes products made of natural, herbal and Ayurvedic ingredients, is pegged at ₹18,500 crore.
This is 41 per cent of the total personal care market and has been growing nearly two times as fast as the overall market. Personal care, which currently accounts for 20-30 per cent of Kapiva’s total sales, is expected to increase to 50 per cent in the next one-two years, he said.
The company is betting big on its online sales channel for growing sales volume. Sales through online platform account for 20-30 per cent of its total turnover.
Kapiva also has a network of stores spread across Mumbai, Kolkata and Delhi. Apart from four company-owned stores, it has presence across 300-400 stores in Mumbai and Kolkata. It is now planning to expand in the southern cities of Bengaluru and Hyderabad.
So, what is the biggest challenge for this start-up? Badhani confides that the mushrooming of a large number of entities claiming to provide ayurvedic solutions for every problem is a threat to genuine players. He calls for more regulations to be put in place to check this problem.