How Kapiva is Blending Ayurveda with Modern Lifestyle

Incorporated in 2016 and beginning operations in 2018 as a digital FMCG brand, Kapiva is a home-grown D2C Ayurvedic nutrition brand. With the idea of solving 2 major issues of discoverability and outcome, Kapiva aims to provide the best quality Ayurvedic products to the customers intending to take it into the future.

“With discoverability we wanted customers to find the right products for the right problems and with outcome, we wanted to help our customers, post-purchase to achieve the health outcome they want,” said Ameve Sharma, Co-Founder, Kapiva.

Coming from a 105-year-old, Ayurvedic family and industry, Ameve believes that Ayurveda is a big part of his lifestyle, diet, and guidance. The idea behind launching Kapiva was to bring forth a holistic solution that is the most effective way to use Ayurveda, something the founders thought was missing from the current landscape.

“Today, we live in a world where pollution is increasing by the day and quality of food is decreasing by the day making Ayurveda more relevant than it ever was, helping customers solve their lifestyle problems,” added Ameve.

Options Galore 

Having started initially with its ingestible range of products, to help its customer base with the required nutrients that were otherwise missing, Kapiva has grown into 2 major categories, skin and hair in 2022.

However, owing to Kapiva’s clientele's demand for authentic topical products, the brand recently launched its range of topical products, including ghee body butter which is a combination of modern and scientific research along with the core principle of Ayurveda. Apart from the Ghee body butter, the brand also launched Ayurvedic hair oil, face oils, and other traditional products backed by science.

“It took us a year to launch our personal care product range, we wanted to live up to the expectations of our customers and provide them with a truly topical range of hair and skin products which is different from everything that is already out there, and has an impact,” asserted Ameve.

Enabling New User Behavior

“As a brand, we prioritize educating our customers, we believe an educated customer would make the right decision. Therefore, we aim on maximizing our efforts to educate our audience on Ayurveda, its working principle, the benefits, how to use it, etc.,” asserted Ameve.

Thus the brand believes, the customer who is accurately educated about the products and their ingredients will make the correct decisions.

Being the largest alternative medicine brand in India owing to its traffic and revenue, Kapiva has around 35 bestsellers on Amazon along with a significant presence on Google through SEO. The brand has thus created itself as a consultation platform carrying out more than 80,000 consultations a month allowing its audience to gain a customized output.

The D2C platform contributing to around 40 percent of the brand’s revenue, makes the process of customization feasible. However, the brand now plans to roll this customization for a larger marketplace.

Potential of Ayurveda

“Ayurveda is approximately a $3.3 billion industry, however, Kapiva is a part of a larger market which includes Ayurveda along with natural beauty, personal care and functional food which makes our brand a part of a $10 billion market,” said Ameve Sharma. 

Retention of brands is a key to success, Kapiva has a one-year retention rate of around 70-80 percent. Moreover, the brand is actively involved in consumer studies to understand brand equity and how the audience views the brand.

Technology and Ayurveda

With a full-fledged in-house tech team and a freshly launched app, Kapiva has incorporated technology efficiently into its working and operations. From online consultation to AI-based suggestions through a quiz to an AI chatbot on Whatsapp, the brand is leveraging technology for 2 of its major goals, one being discoverability and the second, being guided to the outcome.

“Technology plays a huge role, to help the consumer find what they need in the right way. We have personalised quizzes for every concern be it weight-management or skincare, our AI based algorithm creates not only product recommendation, but also lifestyle and diet recommendation which is customised for every individual customer,” said Ameve.

The brand further provides AI-based customized post-purchase recommendations, also known as Kapiva’s four-balance program, inclusive of product, diet, lifestyle, and consultation.

Retail, Marketing, Growth, and Revenue

Since D2C allows Kapiva to have the best connection with the consumers, it is the brand’s largest channel bringing in 40 percent of its revenue. This has further allowed Kapiva to follow a D2C-centric marketing strategy.

The second largest channel is marketplaces such as Amazon, Flipkart, etc., wherein the brand is able to share content and educate consumers through the platform. Thus, making the offline channel its smallest.

Kapiva has raised a funding of Rs 110 crore across 3 rounds. Moreover, the brand has witnessed a growth of over 250 percent in 2022.

The brand has deployed part of the said funds however, its primary focus for investments is in research and development, marketing, and talent.

Moreover, over the last 6 months, Kapiva has witnessed its customer base grow by over 120 percent on its website.

Future Plans

In order to replicate an ayurvedic nutritionist, the brand is all set to incorporate AI-based ayurvedic diet plan suggestions which will be customized for every customer. Kapiva further intends to roll out four-balance programs for skin, hair, and other categories.

Already expanded into the international markets, the brand aims to take modern Ayurveda into the future and make it relevant for the millennials, Kapiva aims to spend the majority of its funds on educating its audience through marketing.

Kapiva is eyeing to grow 5x aiming to reach 1,200 crore revenue and become a household name in the next 3 to 5 years while providing better health outcomes to its customer base, 281 million Indian households in totality.