After you play
Brand notes
These pages name each label. They are here so the notes can be read and indexed on their own. Stay on the game if you want the marks to stay a surprise.
Coffee
Bili Hu
Bili Hu takes its name from a Kannada phrase for the white coffee blossom. The brand positions itself as approachable specialty coffee for hotels, cafés and home brewers, with estate lots and blends sold D2C from…
Coffee
Naked Coffee
Four friends—Radhika Seth, Meghna Kaur, Naheel Koroth and Akash Thakkar—built Naked as a no-jargon specialty coffee brand with in-house roasting, estate microlots and pour-over bags, launching D2C mid-2025.
Coffee
Toffee Coffee Roasters
Started in 2019 by Rishabh Nigam and Nandini Shrivastava around a Bandra micro-roastery/café, then pivoted hard to D2C fresh roast during the pandemic—now selling single origins, blends, cold brew and pods nationwide.
Coffee
Riverside Coffee
Rishwin Devaya turned a ~55-acre ancestral Coorg plantation into a specialty estate-direct brand, growing from tiny early volumes to multi-tonne annual sales while pushing more crop through D2C instead of only…
Sneakers
Gully Labs
Arjun Singh and Animesh Mishra launched Gully Labs in Aug 2023 to build India-rooted sneakers—hand-lasted in Noida workshops—with storytelling drawn from Indian streets, crafts and culture rather than Western pastiche.
Sneakers
Comet
Utkarsh Gupta and Dishant Daryani left corporate careers abroad to build Comet in 2023—a design-and-craft focused Indian lifestyle sneaker label headquartered in Koramangala, Bengaluru.
Sneakers
Thaely
Ashay Bhave invented ThaelyTex from waste plastic bags and built a vegan sneaker brand that turns bags and bottles into footwear—concepted while studying in Dubai, then manufacturing in India.
Sneakers
Omizoo
Omizoo builds sneakers for women who move through work and life—comfort-first pairs rooted in Indian textures—founded by Garima after years in beauty/FMCG and an IIM Lucknow deep-dive into women's daily needs.
Clothing
Hempzero
Founded by Tanushree Bajla (2020 per Local Samosa), Hempzero sells organic hemp apparel with azo-free dyes and SPF claims tied to the fibre—positioned as everyday sustainable wear for Indian climates.
Clothing
PHUE
PHUE (founded by Panya Gupta, 2021 per Local Samosa) blends minimal silhouettes with bold art-led prints across co-ords, shirts and dresses—small-batch fashion as wearable art.
Clothing
Lea Clothing Co.
Lavanya Aneja (with Kriti Aneja per Tracxn/Shark Tank archives) built Lea for women with real curves—made-to-order and surplus-fabric pieces that went viral for corset-style fits and body-positive sizing.
Clothing
navvanu
navvanu sells breathable denim and handwoven cotton designed, cut and tailored in its Mumbai workshop—direct-from-workshop pricing without retail markups.
Tech & accessories
Hammer
Rohit Nandwani launched Hammer in 2019 around affordable athleisure wireless audio and later expanded into smartwatches and related gadgets, building assembly capacity in India.
Tech & accessories
CTRL8
CTRL8 positions as accessible tech for young India—TWS earbuds, neckbands, speakers and charging essentials priced sharply (site claims ₹199–₹499 heritage range, with current product MRPs higher on many SKUs).
Tech & accessories
HOPPUP
HOPPUP sells value-oriented TWS earbuds and neckbands pan-India; co-founded by Deepak Arora with Sumit Arora and Jyoti Arora (GetVantage / LinkedIn coverage).
Tech & accessories
Lyne
Family-backed Rajkot brand co-founded by Meet Vij with Navin Vij and Paresh Vij, selling design-led earbuds, neckbands, speakers and mobile accessories as a homegrown alternative to mass audio labels.
Other
See Love
See Love builds gentle, kind-to-skin routines (cleansing oils, serums, creams) with a proprietary SkinLov-4 botanical blend aimed at Indian skin needs, sold primarily D2C.
Other
YBP Skin
Co-founded by Payal Thaker around 2016, YBP Skin blends science-backed actives with whole-plant botanicals, small-batch making, and personal founder-customer communication—slow beauty rather than viral hype.
Other
Stushè
During COVID, fashion student Stuti Shetty taught herself crochet and turned a first bag into Stushè—handcrafted vegan yarn bags made by a team of women artisans, sold D2C and at exhibitions.
Other
Chiaroscuro
Chiaroscuro is an Indian bag label selling handcrafted bags and small leather goods online—positioned around beautiful, carefully made pieces (site: 'We Make Beautiful Bags'), with an 11th-anniversary logo mark live on…