Ex-Swiggy Instamart CEO Karthik Gurumurthy and Sachin Tendulkar’s Ten x You raised $6.5 million to build India’s own premium performance sports footwear brand. They directly challenge Nike and Adidas by tailoring shoes for Indian feet and surfaces, aiming to replicate Chinese brands Anta and Li-Ning’s market disruption. The company faces questions from industry veterans about white space despite claiming early profitability.
How We Got Here
Karthik Gurumurthy spent nearly four years scaling Swiggy Instamart before founding Ten x You in 2024 with co-founder Karan Arora. Sachin Tendulkar’s 2017 parliament speech, urging India to move from a “sports-loving” to a “sports-playing” nation, inspired the brand’s focus on performance sports footwear.
The Numbers
- Sachin Tendulkar, as "Chief Inspiration Officer", regularly calls CEO Gurumurthy to discuss product ideas and outsole grip tweaks.
- The $6.2 billion Indian athletic footwear market is currently dominated by global players like Nike, Adidas, and Puma.
- Ten x You aims to engineer footwear that matches or beats the Japanese benchmark set by brands like Asics.
- The company plans a larger funding round later this year specifically for brick-and-mortar retail expansion.
What Happens Next
🇮🇳 Why This Matters for India
For product managers and engineers designing for the performance sports segment in cities like Meerut and Jalandhar, Ten x You represents a homegrown challenger tailored to local user needs.
The Take
Gurumurthy's Instamart experience gives Ten x You a real shot at India's "missing middle" in performance footwear. The hard part is convincing professional athletes and scaling brand trust — expect that battle to define 2025.
Source:
The Ken ↗