The Indian fashion industry has long overlooked one of the most intimate and essential categories of clothing — lingerie and innerwear. For decades, women across India had to choose between expensive international brands and poor-quality, ill-fitting local products. The gap between comfort, quality, and affordability was glaring. Then came Clovia — a brand that dared to challenge the status quo and put Indian women's comfort at the center of everything.
Clovia is an online-first lingerie and innerwear brand that was founded with a simple but powerful mission: to make comfortable, stylish, and affordable innerwear accessible to every woman in India. Built on a foundation of technology and data, Clovia has transformed the way Indian women shop for lingerie, making it a seamless, empowering, and personalized experience.
Clovia is one of India’s leading online lingerie and innerwear brands, headquartered in Gurugram, Haryana. Founded in 2012, the brand offers a wide range of lingerie, activewear, sleepwear, and personal care products designed specifically for the Indian woman’s body and lifestyle. What makes Clovia unique is its strong use of data analytics and technology to design products, ensuring the perfect balance of fit, comfort, and style.
Clovia operates in one of the fastest-growing segments of India’s fashion industry — the lingerie and innerwear market. Valued at over ₹50,000 crore, this market is growing rapidly due to rising urbanization, increasing disposable incomes, greater awareness about proper fit and comfort, and the expansion of e-commerce. Despite this huge opportunity, the category remained largely underserved online for many years. Women in tier-2 and tier-3 cities had limited access to quality innerwear, and even in metropolitan cities, finding the right fit was often a challenge. By adopting a digital-first approach and focusing on technology-driven product design, Clovia positioned itself perfectly to address this gap and transform how Indian women shop for lingerie.
Clovia was co-founded by Neha Kant, Pankaj Vermani, and Suman Chowdhury — three professionals who brought together expertise in fashion, technology, and business to build a category-defining brand.
Neha Kant — Co-Founder & Chief Creative Officer
Neha Kant is the creative force behind Clovia. An alumna of NIFT (National Institute of Fashion Technology), Neha has spent the better part of her career in the fashion and apparel industry. She has worked with leading fashion houses and brings an intimate understanding of design, consumer preferences, and product development to Clovia. Neha's passion for building products that genuinely serve Indian women's needs is the heart and soul of Clovia's product philosophy.
Pankaj Vermani — Co-Founder & CEO
Pankaj Vermani is the business and technology strategist at Clovia. A graduate of IIT Delhi and IIM Ahmedabad, Pankaj brings with him deep expertise in e-commerce, product management, and data-driven business building. Before Clovia, Pankaj worked with organizations such as Yodlee and has an extensive background in digital product development.
Suman Chowdhury — Co-Founder
Suman Chowdhury brings a robust background in supply chain management and operations to the Clovia team. His expertise has been instrumental in building a scalable and efficient supply chain that enables Clovia to deliver high-quality products at affordable prices. The company currently employs a team of over 500 dedicated professionals.
The idea for Clovia was born out of a simple yet deeply relatable frustration. Neha Kant, like millions of women across India, found it incredibly difficult to find good-quality, well-fitting lingerie at a reasonable price point. International brands were aspirational but unaffordable for most women. Local brands, on the other hand, often failed to get the basics right — fit, fabric, and finish.
Recognizing this massive white space in the market, Neha partnered with Pankaj and Suman to build Clovia from the ground up. The team spent months conducting extensive research — surveying thousands of Indian women about their innerwear habits, frustrations, and aspirations. What they found was eye-opening: the majority of Indian women had never been properly fitted for a bra, and most settled for poor-quality products simply because better alternatives were either unavailable or unaffordable.
Armed with these insights, the founders built Clovia as a technology-first, consumer-centric brand. Every product was designed using data from real women's bodies and preferences. The brand launched online in 2013, making Clovia one of India's earliest direct-to-consumer (D2C) fashion brands. The focus was always on solving a real problem — helping Indian women find innerwear that actually fits and feels good — rather than just selling a product.
Clovia's mission is to democratize access to great innerwear for every Indian woman — regardless of her size, body type, city, or budget. The brand is committed to building products that are rooted in deep consumer understanding, crafted with the finest materials, and priced so that comfort is never a compromise.
Clovia's vision is to be India's most loved and trusted innerwear brand — one that stands for inclusion, body positivity, and the belief that every woman deserves to feel confident and comfortable every single day.
Clovia offers a comprehensive range of products across multiple innerwear and adjacent categories. All products are developed using a proprietary data-driven design process that ensures optimal fit, comfort, and quality.
The key product categories of Clovia are:
Clovia's products cater to a wide range of sizes, including plus sizes, and are available across multiple price points to suit every budget. The brand releases new designs frequently to stay relevant with fashion trends while maintaining its core focus on fit and comfort.
Clovia operates as a technology-driven, direct-to-consumer (D2C) brand. The company sells its products primarily through its own website (clovia.com) and mobile app, giving it direct access to consumers and full control over the brand experience. In addition to its own channels, Clovia is also available on leading marketplaces such as Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra, and Nykaa Fashion.
A key differentiator in Clovia's business model is its use of data analytics in product development. The brand collects and analyzes purchase data, customer reviews, return rates, and feedback to continuously improve its products and design new ones. This data-first approach minimizes waste, reduces return rates, and ensures that products meet real consumer needs.
Clovia has also invested significantly in building an owned supply chain, including in-house manufacturing capabilities. This vertical integration allows the brand to maintain strict quality control, manage costs efficiently, and respond quickly to market trends. Following its acquisition by Reliance Retail in 2021, Clovia gained access to an expansive offline retail network, adding a strong omnichannel dimension to its business model.
Clovia generates revenue through multiple streams, enabling a diversified and resilient financial model:
Direct Product Sales: The primary revenue driver is the direct sale of lingerie, innerwear, and adjacent products through its website, app, and third-party e-commerce platforms. Given the repeat-purchase nature of innerwear, Clovia benefits from a strong base of loyal, returning customers.
Subscription & Loyalty Programs: Clovia offers subscription boxes and loyalty programs that encourage repeat purchases and deepen customer engagement. These programs provide predictable, recurring revenue while improving customer lifetime value.
Offline Retail & Partnerships: Post its acquisition by Reliance Retail, Clovia has been expanding its presence in physical retail stores, unlocking a significant new revenue channel and enabling it to serve customers who prefer an in-store shopping experience.
B2B & Corporate Orders: Clovia also caters to bulk and corporate orders, including employee gifting and institutional procurement, adding an additional layer of revenue diversification.
Building a category-defining brand in a market as complex and sensitive as lingerie came with a unique set of challenges for Clovia's founders.
Breaking Cultural Taboos: Lingerie and innerwear have historically been a taboo subject in India. Marketing these products openly and reaching women across all demographics required Clovia to navigate deep-rooted cultural sensitivities, especially in smaller cities and towns. The team had to build trust carefully through relatable communication and a focus on comfort rather than overtly sensual messaging.
Cracking the Fit Problem: Perhaps the most persistent challenge has been solving India's fit crisis. The vast majority of Indian women wear the wrong size of bra, and sizing conventions developed for Western bodies do not apply directly to Indian women. Clovia invested heavily in research and data collection to develop a proprietary sizing model better suited to Indian body types.
Building Consumer Trust Online: Convincing women to purchase intimate apparel online — without being able to try products first — required Clovia to build an extraordinarily strong reputation for quality and customer service. The brand responded with easy return policies, detailed size guides, virtual fit tools, and exemplary customer support.
Competing Against Established Players: As Clovia grew, it faced increasing competition from well-funded international brands like Triumph, Jockey, and Marks & Spencer, as well as new D2C entrants. Maintaining a competitive edge required constant innovation in both product and technology.
Clovia has raised significant funding across multiple rounds, attracting some of India's most respected investors. The brand's biggest milestone came in 2021, when Reliance Retail — India's largest retailer — acquired a majority stake in Clovia, cementing its position as a dominant force in the Indian innerwear market.
| Date | Round | Amount | Key Investors |
| Nov 2021 | Series D | $19 Million | Reliance Retail |
| Nov 2020 | Series C | $4.6 Million | Premji Invest, IvyCap Ventures |
| Dec 2019 | Series B | $7 Million | IvyCap Ventures, Premji Invest |
| Aug 2017 | Series A | $8 Million | IvyCap Ventures, Sequoia India |
| 2016 | Pre-Series A | $2.5 Million | Kalaari Capital |
| 2013 | Seed Round | Undisclosed | Snow Leopard Technology Ventures |
| CLOVIA FINANCIALS | FY22 | FY23 |
| Operating Revenue | INR 137 crore | INR 232 crore |
| Profit/Loss | INR -64 crore | INR -38 crore |
Clovia has demonstrated strong revenue growth year-on-year, with operating revenue growing significantly as the brand expanded its product range and customer base. While the company has historically operated at a loss — characteristic of high-growth D2C brands investing heavily in technology, marketing, and infrastructure — the losses have been narrowing, reflecting improving operational efficiency. With the backing of Reliance Retail's resources and distribution network, Clovia is on a clear path toward profitability.
Clovia operates in a highly competitive market, with competition spanning legacy brands, international players, and new-age D2C startups:
With the strategic backing of Reliance Retail, Clovia is poised for an aggressive phase of growth. The brand has outlined an ambitious roadmap that spans product expansion, geographic penetration, and omnichannel scaling.
Clovia aims to significantly expand its offline presence, leveraging Reliance's vast network of retail stores across India to reach women in every corner of the country. The brand also plans to deepen its product portfolio into adjacent categories such as activewear, maternity wear, and personal care.
On the technology front, Clovia is investing in AI-powered fit recommendation tools and personalization engines to further enhance the online shopping experience. The long-term vision is to build a Rs 1,000 crore+ brand that is synonymous with innerwear comfort and confidence for the Indian woman — from metro cities to the smallest towns.
What are the top products of Clovia?
"I wanted every woman in India to feel comfortable in her own skin, starting with what she wears closest to it ." — Neha Kant, Co-Founder, Clovia
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