Clovia is an Indian lingerie and loungewear brand founded in Gurugram, outside Delhi, in the early 2010s by Pankaj Vermani, Neha Kant and Suman Choudhary. It started as an online store selling bras, panties and nightwear at mid-to-low prices, and since March 2022 it has been majority owned by Reliance Retail, India's largest retailer.
The founding year depends on whom one asks. Inc42 and this museum's records give 2013; Forbes India gave 2012 in a 2020 profile; a 2024 trade report lists the founding team as of 2015. The company traded through a parent called Purple Panda Fashions.
A Gurugram start-up selling bras online
The problem Clovia set out to solve was not mainly a design problem. It was a shopping problem. For most Indian women in 2013, buying a bra meant a small neighborhood shop, a male shopkeeper behind a counter, a limited choice of sizes and almost no fitting. Department-store lingerie sections were few and concentrated in large cities.
Online retail removed the counter. Clovia sold direct to customers through its own site and app, in sizes and styles that small shops did not stock, and backed it with a size guide and later a proprietary bra fit-test tool. Pankaj Vermani, an IIT Delhi graduate and serial entrepreneur, served as chief executive; Neha Kant took the revenue role, and Soumya Kant, a founding team member, later became one of the brand's public faces.
Products for heat and everyday wear
The range was built around everyday basics: T-shirt bras, padded and non-wired bras, cotton panties in multipacks, shapewear, and nightwear such as printed pajama sets and nighties. Cotton and cotton-rich blends matter in a hot climate where synthetic microfibre can be uncomfortable for much of the year. Prices were pitched at what TechCrunch called the "bridge-to-premium" level, above unbranded market goods and below imported labels.
By 2022 the catalog ran to more than 3,500 styles. Production was largely outsourced, though Forbes India reported in 2020 that the manufacturing units Clovia worked with employed over 3,000 people.
Funding and growth
Clovia grew on venture money. Early backers included IvyCap Ventures and private investors; the company raised about 4 million dollars in 2017 and a 10 million dollar Series B led by AT Capital in 2019. In total it had raised about 25.8 million dollars before its sale.
Net sales reached 86.6 crore rupees in the year to March 2018, and Forbes India reported growth of 45 to 50 percent the following year. The 2020 lockdown stopped the business almost overnight. Vermani told Forbes India he "froze" when the national lockdown was announced on March 24, 2020, as orders and cash flow dried up. The company recovered, and in December 2020 a new investment valued it at about 320 crore rupees.
Reliance Retail takes 89 percent
In March 2022 Reliance Retail Ventures bought an 89 percent stake in Purple Panda Fashions for 950 crore rupees, about 125 million dollars, a figure that covered both secondary shares and new capital. The founding team kept the remaining 11 percent.
It was Reliance's third lingerie purchase in a short period. It had already bought into the online lingerie retailer Zivame and the lingerie brand Amante. The logic was plain: India's lingerie market was estimated at about 3 billion dollars in 2017 and was moving from unbranded to branded goods, and Reliance wanted brands at every price level for its stores and its online platforms.
From online-only to stores
Under Reliance, Clovia moved hard into physical retail. By late 2024 trade reports counted 75 exclusive brand outlets, distribution through about 600 large-format stores and some 2,000 multi-brand outlets, alongside its online sales. Revenue for the 2024 financial year was reported at about 53 million dollars. Losses, though, also widened as the company spent on growth; YourStory reported that the 2023 loss rose 54 percent even as revenue from operations climbed 70 percent.
The brand has used Bollywood names, including Shraddha Kapoor and Manushi Chhillar, in its campaigns, and its portfolio has stretched beyond women's lingerie into men's innerwear under the John Players name and kidswear.
The Clovia model in context
Clovia belongs to a generation of Indian direct-to-consumer brands that used the internet to bypass the small-shop system for an embarrassing purchase, then were absorbed by a conglomerate that wanted the customer base. Its story runs parallel to Zivame's. Where Zivame began as a multi-brand store, Clovia was always its own label, and that is why a retailer the size of Reliance could fold it straight onto its own shelves.