Phitku raises angel round from Aman Gupta and Anupam Mittal on Shark Tank India
What's the deal? Gurgaon-based personal care startup Phitku has secured investment from boAt co-founder Aman Gupta and Shaadi.com founder Anupam Mittal on Shark Tank India Season 5. The deal values the company at ₹180 crore.
Phitku claims to be India's first crystal roll-on deodorant — built with purified alum crystal and botanical extracts — designed to kill odour-causing bacteria rather than mask smell with fragrance. The startup was co-founded by chief executive officer Sumit Marda, Neha Marda, and chief product officer Rahul.
Why now? The idea grew out of a personal challenge: hormonal body odour during pregnancy exposed the limits of conventional deodorants and pushed the founders toward hygiene-first solutions. Since launching in January 2025, Phitku says it has generated ₹14 crore in revenue, sold over 200,000 units, and maintained a 4.8 average customer rating with strong repeat purchases.
The investment will fund distribution expansion, manufacturing scale-up, and new product development.
What could go wrong? Phitku is entering a crowded Indian deodorant market dominated by legacy players with deep distribution networks. Its core claim — odour elimination without fragrance — requires significant consumer education, which is expensive and slow.
The product's appeal also hinges on the growing but still niche demand for chemical-free personal care. If that trend plateaus, scaling beyond early adopters could prove difficult.
The signal: Both Aman Gupta and Anupam Mittal are active angel investors who have used Shark Tank India to build consumer brand portfolios, and their backing lends Phitku visibility as much as capital. At the early growth stage, the startup's claimed ₹14 crore in revenue within months of launch suggests strong product-market fit — but the real test is whether a single-SKU, education-heavy brand can scale distribution fast enough to fend off incumbents who can easily replicate a crystal deodorant format.
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