Agilitas is a Bengaluru-based sportswear platform that designs, makes, licenses, distributes, and sells athletic products across manufacturing, brands, and retail. India’s sportswear market still has a basic problem: most brands control only one slice of the value chain. That makes speed, margins, and product consistency harder to manage. That’s why the Agilitas funding round matters — the startup has raised ₹225 crore from Nexus Venture Partners and Rainmatter to spend on manufacturing, brand building, retail expansion, and technology. The company was founded in 2023 by Abhishek Ganguly, Atul Bajaj, and Amit Prabhu, three former Puma executives who clearly aren’t trying to build a small D2C label.
What does Agilitas actually do after the funding?
Agilitas isn’t selling a single hero product. It’s building an end-to-end sportswear business. The model starts with product creation and sports footwear R&D. It runs through owned manufacturing capacity, then moves into brand ownership and licensing, and ends at retail shelves and partner channels. The company is built around 3 pillars — manufacturing, consumer brands, and retail — with an in-house sports footwear innovation center called agilitas.lab.
That matters because the workflow is tighter than what most fashion startups can manage. Agilitas can develop products and make them at scale. Then it can sell them through both owned brands and a multi-brand retail format instead of depending only on marketplaces or third-party distributors. Put simply, it’s trying to own more of the messy middle that usually eats margin and slows launches.
The brand layer is getting crowded fast. Agilitas bought Virat Kohli’s lifestyle label One8, launched Lotto in India in July 2025, and is now extending the One8 line into yoga-focused activewear through One8 Yoga, which is set to launch on June 21, 2026. Anushka Sharma has joined as a strategic investor and co-creator for that line. That gives the company another celebrity-backed brand wedge, this time in wellness rather than performancewear.
Retail is the final piece. Through Sportsyard, Agilitas is building large-format multi-brand stores that carry labels like Nike, Adidas, New Balance, ASICS, Puma, and Skechers under one roof. That’s a very different bet from a pure online-first activewear startup. It’s heavier. It’s harder. But if it works, Agilitas gets control over consumer discovery as well as product supply.
Who founded Agilitas and what had they built before?
The founding story
Agilitas was started in 2023 by Abhishek Ganguly, Atul Bajaj, and Amit Prabhu. The short version: they’d already spent years building one of the strongest sportswear businesses in India inside Puma, then left to build their own version with far more control over manufacturing and distribution. This is the thesis. Not “let’s launch another athleisure brand,” but “let’s own the stack.”
Why these founders fit this market
Ganguly was Puma India and Southeast Asia’s managing director before launching Agilitas. Bajaj was Puma India’s executive director for sales and operations. Prabhu was Puma India’s chief financial officer. This isn’t a team learning supply chains, channel strategy, or sports merchandising on the fly. They’ve already done it at scale.
Ganguly’s track record at Puma matters a lot. He spent about 18 years there and had also worked at Reebok earlier. Under his watch, Puma India’s revenue rose from ₹2,044 crore in FY21 to ₹2,980 crore in FY22, putting it ahead of several big rivals in the country. That doesn’t guarantee Agilitas wins. But it explains why investors were ready to back a capital-intensive plan this early.
Execution so far
The company hasn’t been shy about moving fast. In 2023, it acquired Mochiko Shoes, adding serious footwear manufacturing capacity. Since then, Agilitas says revenue from its manufacturing business has climbed from ₹642 crore in FY23 to ₹1,350 crore in FY26. It also says Lotto has gained traction since its India launch in July 2025, and Sportsyard’s first Bengaluru store turned profitable within 2 months. Next comes physical expansion. The company plans 10 more Sportsyard stores in the current financial year.
Fundraising details
This latest round brings in ₹225 crore, with Nexus Venture Partners putting in ₹200 crore and Rainmatter adding ₹25 crore. Before this, Agilitas had already raised ₹430 crore in 2023 from funds advised by Convergent Finance LLP and individual investors, then added strategic capital from names like Virat Kohli, Yuvraj Singh, Hardy Sandhu, and Abhishek Sharma. The company has now raised more than $68 million in total. One unusual detail: 58 employees also participated in an internal investment round in 2025.
Kohli’s role is bigger than celebrity endorsement. Agilitas acquired One8 last year, Kohli invested about ₹40 crore in the startup, and the two sides entered an exclusive partnership with him as investor and co-creator. That structure gives Agilitas brand equity it didn’t have to build from scratch.
How Agilitas stacks up against rivals
Agilitas is competing on a few fronts at once. At the top end, it runs into global incumbents like Nike, Adidas, Puma, ASICS, and Skechers — brands with massive recall and entrenched distribution. In India’s startup and homegrown brand set, it overlaps with players such as BlissClub, HRX, Cultsport, and Campus Activewear, though most of those businesses don’t combine owned manufacturing, brand licensing, and multi-brand retail in one structure. BlissClub, for example, reported ₹131.5 crore in FY25 revenue and competes in a crowded women’s activewear segment. Campus Activewear remains the dominant domestic sports and athleisure footwear name with far bigger scale in omnichannel distribution.
Agilitas looks different here. It isn’t acting like a narrow D2C activewear brand, and it isn’t just a contract manufacturer either. Investors are backing a platform thesis: use Indian manufacturing depth, add licensed and owned brands, then create a controlled retail layer on top. It’s an expensive play. But it’s also harder to copy than yet another leggings brand with Instagram ads.
What happens after the Agilitas funding round?
The use of funds is pretty clear: manufacturing, brand building, retail expansion, and tech. And that tells you what this round really is. It’s not survival capital. It’s build-out capital. Agilitas is trying to speed up a model that needs factories, distribution muscle, store economics, and constant product development all working together.
Nexus returning with a ₹200 crore follow-on matters because it signals conviction after seeing actual execution, not just a founder deck. Rainmatter’s ₹25 crore check also fits the company’s widening focus on fitness, wellness, and sports consumption, especially with One8 Yoga arriving on June 21, 2026. If Agilitas can keep stitching together brand launches, store rollout, and manufacturing throughput without losing discipline, this round could turn it from an ambitious structure into a scaled consumer business.
Why are investors chasing India’s athleisure market?
The broader market tailwind is real. IMARC estimates India’s athleisure market reached about $13.88 billion in 2025 and could hit $22.37 billion by 2034, growing at a 5.28% CAGR from 2026 to 2034. A separate IMARC forecast puts India’s activewear market at $10.72 billion in 2025 and $17.41 billion by 2034. These aren’t tiny niches anymore. They point to a category that’s moving from urban fitness trend to mainstream wardrobe behavior.
The demand story is wider than gym wear. Fabric technology has improved. Casual dressing keeps blurring with performancewear. More Indian consumers are buying products that work for commuting, travel, yoga, and everyday comfort, not just for sport. That’s why companies are mixing fashion, footwear, wellness, and retail formats instead of treating sportswear as a specialist category.
What’s the takeaway from the Agilitas funding?
The Agilitas funding round looks like a bet on structure, not just style. A lot of brands can market activewear. Far fewer can design it and manufacture it. Fewer still can license it, distribute it, and sell it through their own retail engine.
Over the next 12 months, the big test won’t be the headline number. It’ll be whether Agilitas can make Sportsyard expansion, Lotto scale-up, and the June 21, 2026 launch of One8 Yoga feel like parts of one coherent business rather than a pile of ambitious moves.
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FAQ
- What is the Agilitas funding amount and who invested?
Agilitas raised ₹225 crore in its latest round. Nexus Venture Partners contributed ₹200 crore as a follow-on investment, while Rainmatter put in ₹25 crore, with the money earmarked for manufacturing, brand building, retail expansion, and technology. - How does Agilitas actually make money?
Agilitas makes money across multiple layers of the sportswear value chain rather than from one label alone. It develops products and manufactures footwear and apparel capacity. It also operates brands such as Lotto and One8, and sells through retail concepts like Sportsyard as well as partner channels. - Who founded Agilitas?
Agilitas was founded in 2023 by Abhishek Ganguly, Atul Bajaj, and Amit Prabhu. All 3 came from senior roles at Puma India — Ganguly as managing director for India and Southeast Asia, Bajaj in sales and operations, and Prabhu in finance — which is a big reason investors took the team seriously from day 1. - Is Agilitas an athleisure brand or a sportswear platform?
It’s better described as a sportswear platform. The company spans manufacturing, consumer brands, R&D, distribution, and retail, which puts it closer to an integrated operating business than to a single-category athleisure startup.
