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Dominated for years by names like Jockey, Triumph, and Amante, and more recently by the likes of Reliance-owned Zivame and Clovia, India’s innerwear market is one where new-age brands are seeing a clear opportunity to disrupt.
Firstly, the market is projected to reach $20 Bn by 2030, but the key in the innerwear category is finding the right GTM. For Underneat, that niche is shapewear.
While this small segment has existed in the Indian market for some time, it wasn’t until around 2022 that the segment began to see significant consumer traction.
The global cultural influence and the rise of brands like Spanx and SKIMS have normalised shapewear as an everyday essential but in India, no brand has truly owned the space. It’s an open field that influencer Kusha Kapila and Vimarsh Razdan are eyeing.
The duo launched Underneat in March 2025 and claim to have already sold around INR 4.5 Cr worth of products (GMV) as well as EBITDA positive numbers right from the beginning.
Backed by Honasa cofounder Ghazal Alagh and Fireside Ventures, Underneat’s journey has begun with $1 Mn in seed funding, and the startup aims to create an INR 100 Cr brand within 36 months.
This is a bold ambition for a company that’s barely five months old, but it could have the right product to make its case to start with.
Of course, this comes with the caveat that as a shapewear brand, there is not much of a moat for companies like Underneat against international and Indian fashion giants. There is also a danger of this space becoming heavily commoditised in the future, so how does Underneat plan to tackle this challenge in the long run?
The Story Behind Underneat
Most people know Kusha Kapila as a comedian and creator, but the trigger behind the launch of Underneat was simply her experience with wearing shapewear under a saree.
She didn’t get the seamless look she wanted from this store-bought pair and realised most Indian women would also have the same issue in this case.
Kapila claims she struggled to find comfortable, body-type inclusive shapewear for different outfits, especially for things like bodycon or tube dresses. She had to rely on international brands primarily with some local offerings thrown in.
Speaking to Inc42, Kapila said that the shapewear category has been ignored in India and that something needed to be done. It helped that her vision aligned with Razdan, a fashion industry veteran, who was actively looking to build his own D2C brand in the fashion space.
Bringing his experience with the likes of Marks & Spencer, GAP, Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren and other brands, Razdan knew what it takes to build, scale, and sustain fashion brands globally. In 2017, however, he made a conscious decision to focus on the Indian consumer.
Some experimentation with foreign brands helped him gain direct exposure to the customer base that was aspirational.
This led to the launch of Attic Salt, a premium homegrown fashion brand, which went on to cross $1 Mn in revenue in its very first year. The brand is still around, but for now Razdan’s focus is on Underneat.
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The turning point came in 2023, during a conversation with his friend and entrepreneur Ghazal Alagh (who runs Honasa). She introduced him to Kapila, became a mentor of sorts and an integral part of the Underneat journey from day one.
“I had worked across many categories, lingerie, menswear, and athleisure, but shapewear as a category was completely new to me. Kusha [Kapila] was the first one to introduce it to me. I couldn’t initially understand the pain points—why a woman needs more cushioning, more seamlessness. What makes one shapewear better than another? It was all new to me,” Razdan recalled.
Their research took them to Hong Kong, China, Vietnam, Germany, and other regions where they studied the market, materials, and explored what truly made shapewear work. It helped that Kapila was the very first customer and started by adding her own pain points to the list.
Shaping A Revolution
The journey from idea to launch took more than two years. During this time, the founders interviewed over 12,000 women to understand the real, lived challenges when it comes to shapewear.
“We rejected the Western idea of chasing an hourglass figure. Most Indian women don’t want to radically change their bodies. They want just 10–15% correction, subtle support, and above all—comfort,” Razdan added.
Underneat’s products are customised for Indian climate, body types, and aspirations of Indian women.
The solution begins at the yarn level. Wicking yarns are critical for breathability, sweat absorption, and comfort in high-temperature areas like most Indian cities. Though this yarn was extremely expensive, the company decided on working with partners from Germany to get this material.
This has been supplemented by manufacturers from Vietnam, China, and Sri Lanka for circular knitting and seamless garment manufacturing. On the manufacturing side, the brand works exclusively with factories equipped with Derco seamless machines, known for their precision and consistency.
Razdan claims India isn’t fully mature yet when it comes to this level of yarn and shapewear tech, but the startup plans to bring this entire production to India one day.
The founder claimed that the German-engineered yarn used in their shapewear offers maximum sweat absorption, superior breathability, and exceptional comfort in high-temperature, humid climates like India. “Unlike most Indian shapewear, which often contains polyester that traps heat and causes discomfort, our products are entirely polyester-free. Instead, we rely on moisture-wicking, soft-touch yarns enhanced with Sensil technology—a patented innovation that improves airflow, durability, and comfort,” he added.
Besides shapewear, Underneat sells accessories that require skin adhesion and other innerwear products. “Each garment is constructed using precisely calibrated thread tensioning. These garments are also designed to meet sports-grade performance standards,” Razdan claimed.
Underneat’s 100-Day Sprint
After nearly two years of research and 60 product reiterations, Underneat launched with 20 SKUs and an overwhelming response thanks to social media creators and Kapila’s celebrity powering the launch.
Despite minimal marketing, the brand saw an overwhelming response at launch, driven almost entirely by Kapila, whose 4.5 Mn+ Instagram following contributed to massive traffic spike on Day 1. “The demand was so high that the website crashed, and Meta temporarily flagged their ad account due to abnormal traffic for a new brand,” Razdan said.
Razdan says the intent is to keep the brand’s portfolio tight and focussed, creating only those products that truly solve consumer problems. As of now, a new product is launched every 15 days, and any item that receives negative feedback or underperforms is discontinued.
Currently, the brand offers 24 SKUs across premium bras, seamless shapewear, bodysuits, tummy tuckers, and more. Thus far, it says over 25,000 consumers have bought its products in the first 100 days.
This year (FY26) Razdan said the plan is to reach INR 30 Cr and then INR 100 Cr brand within the next 36 months.
As part of its expansion strategy, the company plans to focus more on marketplaces, quick commerce platforms, and establish exclusive brand outlets (EBOs), beginning with Delhi and Mumbai based on consumer traffic and demand.
Can Underneat Hold Its Own?
Currently, it’s too early to definitively say how sustainable the brand’s business model will be. However, Razdan is confident that India is at a breakout moment for shapewear and technical bras. The category itself is still in its infancy in India but rapidly evolving.
Despite being around for a number of years, Indian innerwear and lingerie brands have had a tough time scaling up and competing with established players such as Jockey, Enamor, Amante as well as the unbranded segment which is a huge draw for online consumers. The likes of Nykaa have also launched private labels in this space.
When customers do splurge on brands, it’s for more premium options. In terms of direct competition, Underneat competes with the likes of Krvvy, another functional innerwear brand, which raised INR 6 Cr+ in a pre-seed round by Titan Capital and All In Capital.
While Underneat’s proposition is unique and it has some competitive advantage in terms of its manufacturing moat, competitive intensity in the innerwear fashion and lifestyle space is at an all-time high.
This is particularly so because incumbents usually have the distribution advantage and jump on to new trends quickly. Even companies such as Damensch or XYXX took more than six years to get to INR 100 Cr mark in the men’s innerwear space.
Global brands are also having an easier time launching in India today, so can Kusha Kapila’s Underneat continue the initial sales momentum for the next few months?
[Edited by Nikhil Subramaniam]
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