Underneat has gone from launch to scale at an unusually fast clip: a shapewear brand that hit ₹150 crore ARR in under eight months, stayed EBITDA‑positive from day one, and has now raised $6 million (≈₹50 crore) in a Pre‑Series A round led by Fireside Ventures.
What Underneat is building
Underneat is a women’s shapewear and innerwear brand co‑founded in 2025 by content creator‑actor Kusha Kapila and fashion‑industry veteran Vimarsh Razdan, with Ghazal Alagh as an early mentor‑investor.
- It focuses on shapewear designed specifically for Indian bodies, climate and price points, rather than importing Western fits and fabrics.
- The range includes shaping shorts, bodysuits, high‑waist shapers and everyday innerwear built to be breathable and comfortable enough for all‑day wear, not just special occasions.
- Positioning is mass‑premium: quality comparable to global brands but typically 30–40% cheaper than imported shapewear, to make the category accessible to a much wider base of Indian women.
The founders frame it more as a body‑positive comfort brand than a “slimming” label—“enhancing, not altering our bodies,” as Razdan has put it.
Funding timeline and growth milestones
Seed round and launch
- Seed funding (Mar–Apr 2025):
- Launch: Website and first collection went live on 30 March 2025. Within two days, Underneat had 1.76 lakh Instagram followers, riding on Kapila’s 4.1‑million social audience and a multi‑month series of content on shapewear styling and body comfort.
Early traction
- The team spent two years in R&D, visiting factories in Hong Kong, China, Vietnam and Germany, running 60+ product iterations and interviewing 12,000 women on fit, sweat, chafing and sizing before launch.
- Within the first 100 days, Underneat had reportedly reached ₹4.5 crore in monthly revenue and was targeting ₹100 crore ARR within 36 months, already EBITDA‑positive from day one thanks to tight unit economics and controlled marketing spend.
Scaling to ₹60–150 crore ARR
- By six months post‑launch, the brand had:
- By December 2025, Underneat says it has:
Pre‑Series A (Dec 2025)
- Round: $6 million (≈₹50 crore) Pre‑Series A.
- Lead investor: Fireside Ventures (doubling down from seed).
- Use of funds: expand manufacturing, deepen R&D, strengthen distribution in key metros and Tier‑II cities, and grow the product line beyond shapewear into broader innerwear.
How Underneat is scaling: content, community, commerce
The “3 Cs” Ghazal Alagh highlighted are visible in the data and narrative:
- Content
- Kusha’s highly relatable, often humorous content around body image, outfit struggles, and “underneath‑the‑outfit” realities has been the primary acquisition engine.
- Instead of traditional ads, much of the growth has come from honest conversations, try‑on reels, and education on how shapewear should actually feel, turning taboo topics into mainstream discussion.
- Community
- Underneat has built a 200,000‑strong women’s community across Instagram, WhatsApp groups and feedback channels, actively soliciting input on sizing, colours, fabrics and new SKUs.
- Co‑founders say repeat orders and DM feedback from this cohort have directly shaped product tweaks—helping keep return rates low and satisfaction high.
- Commerce & unit economics
- With Vimarsh Razdan’s fashion‑ops background and Fireside’s D2C playbook, Underneat has optimised supply chain, inventory turns and gross margins from day one, allowing it to invest behind demand without chasing unsustainable discounts.
- The brand sells primarily D2C via its own site, with selective marketplace presence and plans to add offline touchpoints as it scales.
Read this: Ghazal Alagh-Backed Underneat Clocks Rs 60 Cr ARR, Onboards Over 1 Lakh Customers in Just 6 Months
Why this trajectory stands out
- Speed + profitability: Hitting ₹150 crore ARR in under eight months while being EBITDA‑positive is rare for Indian fashion D2C, where many brands take years to reach that scale and often burn cash heavily.
- Category creation: Shapewear in India is a fragmented, under‑penetrated ₹1,600‑crore‑plus opportunity (≈$196M), growing at ~11% CAGR, but with few truly Indian‑fit, climate‑aware brands. Underneat is positioning itself as the Skims‑style category leader for India.
- Influencer‑operator combo: The mix of creator‑led demand generation (Kusha), industry‑grade product and supply chain (Vimarsh), and consumer‑brand VC expertise (Fireside + Ghazal) gives it an execution edge that goes beyond a typical celebrity brand.
Put together, Underneat’s story so far is: deep R&D and community listening → outsized launch via an existing audience → disciplined, profitable scaling to ₹150‑crore ARR → a $6‑million institutional step‑up to build what could become the reference shapewear and innerwear brand for Indian women.
