From Shutdown Scare to INR 500 Cr Scale: How Akshayakalpa Rekindled Its Dairy Dream

At least six times they decided to down the shutter – only to revert and retry. Nine years on, with revenues comfortably on track to exceed INR 500 Cr, they don’t cry over spilled milk anymore and, instead, look ahead to get bigger. 

The tale of Akshayakalpa has been as unusual as its journey over the years. The idea was not conceived in the boardrooms but in a farm on the outskirts of Bengaluru where 27 Wipro engineers volunteered to share a part of their salaries to build a clean, organic dairy brand, offering milk that’s free from pesticides, chemical toxins and additives. 

“Every time we ran into a trouble, we would get into a conference call and I would personally ask my ex-colleagues at Wipro to contribute anything from INR 50,000 to INR 50 Lakh so that the business could sustain,” co-founder and chief executive Shashi Kumar told Inc42 in a candid chat.

E-commerce was yet to enter the food segment in a big way and quick commerce was far from coming into existence when Akshayakalpa started selling milk through wholesalers.

The crowdfunding-based dairy startup had to rely heavily on physical or offline sales through intermediaries and agents, but a fragmented market with no proper way to realise revenues from intermediaries was the biggest hurdle. 

After five years of struggle, the founders spotted growing stickiness with the brand around 2016.

“Right from the beginning, we made sure to connect with farmers, helping them transform their land for clean and organic produce. This was gradually yielding results for us, mostly through word of mouth, until the demand gathered momentum,” Kumar recounted. 

A rapid change in consumer preference for slotted deliveries translated into the first breakthrough for Akshayakalpa, which was selling directly through its own app or website and ecommerce platforms like BigBasket, Milk Basket and FreshToHome. 

A White Mughal Out Of A Dairy In Blues

India, which produces 25% of the world’s milk, aims to raise its production to 300 Mn Metric Tonnes (MMT) over the next five years from 239 MMT. A 63.56% growth in production over the last 10 years has paved the way for players like Akshayakalpa to jack up their revenues substantially. 

As Akshayakalpa turned around from the brink, its omnichannel business model drove the topline from INR 30 Cr in FY20 to INR 395 Cr in FY25, even as the company continued to control costs extensively. 

“As of Q1 FY26, we are doing INR 50 Cr sales per month, and looking at a revenue milestone of INR 550-600 Cr by the end of the year. We are standing at a 5% EBITDA margin at the company level,” Kumar shared exclusively with Inc42. The company turned PAT positive as of Q1 FY26 as against a net loss of INR 6.5 Cr in FY25, showed inputs shared by the CEO.

Nearly 70% of its revenue is generated from the flagship milk brand, while the rest comes from products like ghee, butter, cheese and curd, where the company expanded after reaching a revenue benchmark. “We launched high-protein paneer this year and are now working on high-protein milk, buttermilk and yogurts,” Kumar said. 

Banking On D2C To Revive From Bankruptcy 

Catch phrases like ‘start your day with a glass of milk’ and ‘milk makes a complete diet’ enthused a 4 Bn-strong community that’s obsessed with the liquid as part of its dietary staple.

“It took a while to build trust in our brand among customers. We decided to reach them directly to accelerate the process,” Kumar said. “We believe a closer connect with the consumer also helps improve awareness in the market.”

The company invites consumers to visit and spend a few days at their farms on the outskirts of Bengaluru for free. “This consumer-farmer connect helps bridge the trust gap which is often created in today’s consumer economy.” 

It has never been an easy task to make a mark in a $76.49 Bn milk market, which is the largest in the world with at least 170 brands at fray, without a strong distinctive feature. Online buyers, especially in metros like Bengaluru, were hooked to the concept of certified organic milk that Akshayakalpa was selling. 

 

“They were not just willing to pay a premium for our products, they were also extremely brand loyal. This gave us the base to build upon, without going for excessive ad spends or distributor overheads.”

Akshayakalpa has deployed more than 1,600 delivery agents to deliver 30-40 orders each between 4 AM and 7 AM every day. This was complemented by the launch of a subscription plan to build on brand loyalty and grow the D2C channel. “This online pivot helped us to go cash flow positive with INR 30 Cr sales in 2019.” 

As the brand earned popularity, Akshayakalpa started blipping louder on the investor radars. When Lok Capital pumped INR 40 Cr into the brand in 2019, its topline hovered at INR 30 Cr. Five years later, when the VC firm exited Akshayakalpa, its annual sales reached INR 300 Cr. Marquee investors like British International Investment, Nithin Kamath-led Rainmatter Capital, and A91 Partners soon hit the trail to invest in the dairy brand. 

And the 27 Wipro engineers who pooled in to keep Akshayakalpa afloat still hold 12% stake in the company, affirmed the founder.

Quick Commerce Became The Next Big Ride

As a full-scale D2C brand, Akshayakalpa saw its app generating 40% of its sales from 86,000 users with each of them making 20-25 transactions a month. 

“Around 90% of our sales come from subscriptions, which helps us to plan structured deliveries during non-peak hours and avoid cost overheads of quick commerce. Initially, we had no plans to do 10-minute deliveries of our own,” Kumar said.

But, as quick commerce unfurled, it brought about a greater change in consumer behaviour. Brands selling perishable products had to adapt to the change to sustain. Akshayakalpa too hitched a ride on the 10-minute delivery format.

“Today, 40% of our sales come from quick commerce channels,” said the CEO. “We have approximately 1.7 Lakh monthly transacting users across D2C and quick commerce channels.”

The remaining 20% of sales for Akshayakalpa comes from its original offline channels where they sell the product through wholesalers.

“I think the product quality – from our complete ownership of the farming processes even without owning the land to the making of products free of synthetics, aquatoxins and antibiotics – have stayed with our consumers. We also traced the pattern of buyers. A lot of our consumers – both from quick commerce and D2C – are buying our milk for children while the extended family may be buying it at lower prices from other brands,” Kumar said.

Pricing for everyday staples like milk and ghee is crucial when it comes to the budget-conscious Indian consumer. 

Charging A Premium For The Quality

Although Akshayakalpa claims to be the first certified organic dairy brand in Karnataka and other southern states, the competition is heating up with brands like Nandini, Milky Mist and Country Delight joining the fray.

A cursory look at a comparative analysis with its nearest competitors shows that brands like Akshayakalpa and Country Delight sell their 1 Litre milk packets for INR 113-120, which is nearly double that of INR 50-70 that Nandini or Amul charges.

Kumar justified the pricing, saying that the consumer base for premium organic brands is mostly middle and upper-middle income households who are paying the price for the quality of the product.

“Even in the premium categories, you would not see the packets of brands claiming to be fully organic like we do. That is because of the rigorous work we do at the farms with the farmers to fulfil the promises we make to our consumers.” 

Akshayakalpa doesn’t own any farms from where the production happens, but works for years to turn it to a fully organic land. “Then we buy back the entire produce from our farmers at a fixed cost and sell it through our platform or through quick commerce channels,” he added.

Akshayakalpa operates in three states – Karnataka (Tumkur), in Tamil Nadu (Changalpattu) and  Telangana (Ranga Reddy) – and plans to expand to Maharashtra (Mumbai) soon. The company aims to go pan-India but is in no mood to rush. 

In an increasingly competitive D2C landscape, where even marketplaces like Blinkit are turning into inventory-led models and clashing with the popular brands, Akshayakalpa lays out an interesting blueprint for younger brands.

The company is also going slow on its IPO plans or even next funds-raise, as the CEO said, just like its expansion plans. This reaffirms its unflinching focus on unit economics, profitability and running the operations from the company’s coffers without relying much on external funding.

[Editing By Kumar Chatterjee]