Build, Not Buy: TechnoSport’s Activewear Gameplan To The ₹600 Cr Revenue Club

Remember athleisure? The term coined for workout wear and weekend wear stormed the market in the 2000s, entered the dictionary in 2015, and reached its apogee during the 2020 pandemic. The fashion evolved further, and activewear became the new rage worldwide, as staying fit became a lot more than a fad. 

Activewear is today a $373.07 Bn global industry, zooming at 8.57% a year to reach $720.25 Bn by 2034. But headwinds are hard to ignore. For years, India’s $16.9 Mn activewear market has been grappling with a structural imbalance between deep-pocket, snazzy global marques with their expensive products and a fragmented domestic ecosystem with scant technical depth to build performance-driven products at scale. 

With high-quality activewear staying largely unaffordable to a larger cross-section of consumers, the projected 11.8% annual growth rate of the industry to hit a top line of $41.2 Mn by 2033 is often seen as staggering.  

But the deeper problem isn’t just pricing – it is more about structural dependence. India’s activewear market has always been import-heavy, with homegrown brands relying on overseas vendors not just for finished products, but for the core building block and performance fabric as well. This creates a cascading effect on costs with imported raw materials, longer lead times, currency volatility, and inventory risk. For a category where trends and functionality evolve quickly, this lag becomes a competitive disadvantage.

At the same time, the domestic textile ecosystem is optimised for categories like cotton apparel, denim, and ethnic wear. These segments prioritise aesthetics and cost-efficiency over performance engineering. Activewear, by contrast, is deeply technical.

“A high-performance t-shirt is not just stitched fabric, it is a functional system. It must regulate body temperature, manage sweat, prevent microbial growth, protect against UV exposure, and remain lightweight and durable across repeated use. Building this requires expertise across polymer science, knitting technology, chemical processing, and finishing techniques,” pointed out Puspen Maity, CEO of TechnoSport.

The active sportswear and athleisure startup tries to bridge the gap between what the consumer needs and where manufacturing limits are drawn. TechnoSport was founded in 2007, the timing was both early and risky. Global brands were doubling down on India, riding on rising disposable incomes and urban aspirations. Their playbook was clear: import premium products, build brand cachet, and target affluent consumers.

Instead of building a competitive brand, TechnoSport focused on building a competitive infrastructure. The founding philosophy, build in India, build for India, was a strategic decision to localise the most complex part of the value chain – fabric development. In the initial years, the company had to bootstrap capabilities that didn’t exist locally. It collaborated with international partners in Taiwan and Canada, importing specialised yarn while developing in-house expertise in knitting and processing. “This hybrid model helped us reduce our import-dependence,” said Maity, who came on board in 2022 with the experience of leading the cultsport and sportswear categories at Myntra.

The business model gradually evolved into a deep vertical integration. And, the company today controls nearly every stage of production – from yarn processing to fabric engineering, dyeing, and finishing. While cutting and stitching remain distributed, the highest value-add layer, the fabric, sits firmly within its control, according to the CEO.

This distinction is critical. In activewear, fabric determines performance. By owning this layer, TechnoSport has been able to innovate, iterate, and price more efficiently than competitors reliant on external suppliers, even as global brands step up their focus on India’s $2.4 Tn consumer market that’s likely to be the world’s second-largest at $4.3 Tn by 2030.

Cracking The Price-Performance Equation

One of the most enduring assumptions in activewear is that performance inevitably comes at a premium – high-function fabrics, designed to manage sweat, control odour, and fight environmental stress, must not be meant for the average consumer. It is an assumption that TechnoSport has quietly but consistently dismantled, Maity noted.

At the product level, the offering checks every box associated with global performance wear. Its fabrics are engineered to wick moisture away, dispersing it across the surface to accelerate evaporation and keep the wearer cool. They contain anti-microbial compounds like Zinc Pyrithione, to prevent the growth of odour-causing bacteria.

Add to that UPF 50+ protection against harmful UV rays, treated with features such as anti-static properties and enhanced breathability, and the result is a garment built for both performance and comfort in India’s demanding climate. What makes this noteworthy is not just the presence of these features, but their accessibility.

While most brands rely on layered supply chains and imported inputs, each adding to the cost, TechnoSport inverted this model. Its advantage lies in the interplay of scale and integration. With production volumes running up to 3 Lakh garments a day, fixed costs are spread thin across massive output, driving down per-unit economics. At the same time, its control over fabric development reduces dependence on external suppliers who typically command high margins for specialised materials.

This combination fundamentally alters the pricing equation. Instead of passing on layered costs to the consumer, the company makes the system smarter. The outcome is a product that delivers on performance while sitting at an average price point of ₹450-500, expanding its addressable market.

“In a country where affordability often dictates adoption, this is more than just a pricing strategy. It is a structural shift. By collapsing the gap between performance and price, TechnoSport is not merely competing within the activewear category, it is actively enlarging it, bringing a new cohort of consumers into a segment that was once considered aspirational,” Maity said.

Using Manufacturing As A Strategic Moat

While many D2C brands have pivoted to asset-light models by outsourcing production and focusing on branding and distribution, TechnoSport has taken a structurally different route by investing heavily in manufacturing.

The company’s ₹200 Cr investment in a manufacturing facility in Tiruppur reflects an effort to build control over the fabric, which is the most complex and value-intensive part of the supply chain. Unlike categories where stitching and design drive differentiation, activewear’s core lies in material performance. 

“By integrating processes such as knitting, dyeing, and finishing in-house, while sourcing yarn and converting it into finished fabric internally, TechnoSport reduces its reliance on external vendors for critical inputs.” Maity claimed that the facility is powered by renewable energy and recycles about 95% of the water it consumes. 

This level of integration has some tangible implications. First, it allows tighter control over costs. Since a significant portion of value addition in activewear happens at the fabric stage, internalising this process helps avoid supplier mark-ups that are typical in a fragmented supply chain. By paying for multiple vendor margins, the company retains the entire margin within the business, which, in turn, reduces cost.

Second, it improves responsiveness. With demand often exceeding supply, capacity has been a constraint, rather than a surplus. By expanding manufacturing and digitising operations through IoT-enabled systems and real-time monitoring, it is trying to better align production with demand signals coming from distributors, marketplaces, and its own channels. 

“We wanted to build a manufacturing moat that would be difficult for competitors to replicate,” he said. “While the advantage comes from a combination of scale, integration, and market positioning, TechnoSport runs high-volume manufacturing for relatively affordable price points.”

In that sense, the manufacturing backbone functions less as a standalone moat and more as an enabling layer. It supports the company’s ability to price competitively, maintain supply reliability, and iterate on products.

Not A Fitness Hub, It’s A Longevity Centre 

Nike’s chief science officer Matthew Nurse noticed over the past five years that customers increasingly want to invest in their health more broadly. “Lots of new gyms are not just workouts, they’re longevity centres,” the Wall Street Journal quoted him last year.

And, what played the catalyst for enhanced attention to fitness was the pandemic. It also gave TechnoSport the momentum it needed. Fitness and wellness saw a structural shift in the post-Covid world. As consumers moved from occasional workouts to sustained lifestyle changes, activewear transitioned from being functional to habitual, worn not just for exercise, but also for daily comfort.

For TechnoSport, this was a time of validation. Its value proposition – affordable, functional, and comfortable apparel – aligned perfectly with the evolving consumer behaviour. As more users discovered the brand, repeat usage drove stickiness.

Growth was inevitable. From a steady pre-pandemic expansion, the company saw a sharp spike, clocking 70–90% growth in 2022. This growth was not purely demand-led – it was enabled by supply readiness. Many competitors struggled, but TechnoSport’s localised manufacturing allowed it to respond faster.

Instead, the Bengaluru-based startup secured $25 Mn (around ₹208 Cr) in its first external fundraising from A91 Partners in May 2024. The capital boosted its manufacturing capabilities as well as beefed up its focus on digital brand building and marketing activities. 

Rewiring Distribution, Building For Scale

For much of its journey, TechnoSport relied on general trade as its primary growth engine, building a wide distribution network that today reaches nearly 7,000 retailers across India. This gave the brand strong penetration, particularly in non-metro markets where affordability and availability often determine adoption. But as the category evolved 2022 onwards, so did the company’s approach to distribution.

The shift has been towards a more layered, omnichannel presence. Exclusive brand outlets are becoming an important piece of the puzzle, not just as sales points but as spaces to control consumer experience and display the entire product range. At the same time, digital channels have expanded rapidly, with the brand strengthening its presence across platforms like Myntra, Amazon, and Flipkart, alongside its own D2C website. 

The move into quick commerce platforms further signals an attempt to align with changing consumption patterns, where convenience and immediacy are increasingly shaping purchase decisions.

What ties these channels together is a recognition that consumer journeys are no longer linear. Discovery, purchase, and repeat behaviour now happen across multiple touchpoints, often blending online and offline experiences. 

Parallel to this evolution in distribution, the company has been embedding technology deeper into its operations. Activewear, like broader fashion, operates under demand uncertainty, where forecasting errors can lead to excess inventory or missed opportunities. To address this, TechnoSport is investing in IoT-enabled manufacturing systems and data-driven demand planning, integrating inputs from retailers, marketplaces, and its own platforms. The objective is tighter alignment between production and consumption, reducing inefficiencies that are endemic to the category.

This operational backbone has supported a sharp financial trajectory. From around ₹75 Cr in FY20 to nearly ₹600 Cr in FY26 – the company’s growth reflects both market tailwinds and execution. It has achieved this while remaining EBITDA-positive and raising limited external capital, with backing from A91 Partners largely directed towards strengthening the manufacturing capacity. 

India’s demographic advantage, rising health awareness, and evolving lifestyle preferences are steadily pushing activewear into the mainstream. What was once a niche category is increasingly becoming everyday wear. In that context, the opportunity is less about premium positioning and more about widening access.

TechnoSport’s model, built on manufacturing depth, price accessibility, and expanding distribution, is closely aligned with this shift. The next phase of growth will depend on how effectively it can sustain this balance at scale.

[Edited by Kumar Chatterjee]

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