Couple Goals Totally!

Founded by the husband wife duo, Sujata Pawar and Apurv Agarwal of Thane, MyAvni is a young coming of age startup focused on traditional menstrual care.

The brand offers well researched, innovative, tested products to facilitate women hygiene during periods. The co-founders envision Avni to emerge as a reliable women’s health brand with the support of medical experts, 24X7 helpline, and conscious products right from menarche to menopause.

Avni is a digital first D2C brand with presence on its own website www.myavni.com, and major ecommerce platforms including- Amazon, Flipkart, Snapdeal, 1 mg, Qtrove, Shycart, Vayas Sakhi, Upciclo, ThePinkBox, Indiamart, Bkarmic, Smytten, Emoment. The brand also has retail presence in 26 stores in southern India. Further, it is actively collaborating with NGOs and menstrual educators across India for outreach in rural areas to provide education, awareness and distribution of products.

How was the idea incepted?

It started 8 years back when Sujata had an uncomfortable experience using commercially available sanitary pads which led to rashes. She further spoke to friends and family and heard similar experiences. Such bad rashes despite being a lean person made her think and dig deeper into the issue. All the research pointed out towards the plastic and chemicals harming the reproductive system over long term exposure let alone the negative impact on environment and bacterial exposure to sanitation workers. It is then that She started searching for alternatives that are not only skin friendly but eco friendly and do not harm the sanitation worker in any way. When she realised that none of the existing brands were catering to these three aspects, she decided to pursue it further and started working towards a solution. She kept on studying and researching on the subject to get a better understanding of how it works and what all would she require to create a product that meets the requirement. After having enough information she shared it as a business idea with Apurv, who was equally excited to work on it. From that point, the duo together started developing Avni, reusable cloth pad which also is India’s first tested cloth pad that not only absorbs but also protects from infections.

Product Line

Over the period, the co-founders realised that sanitary napkins cannot alone replace all the products that cater to menstrual needs as a lot of women use different products that are causing harm. The brand then launched the Avni Ezeepad and Avni cups in December 2020. Along the journey the cofounders realised that there is less awareness, and more fear about reusable menstrual products due to the lack of reliable support for women, when it comes to the choice of products. Thus, the brand launched India’s First 24X7 period helpline accessible via whatsapp/call/sms which will make the transition smooth and help women develop a sustainable period routine. Currently the array of offerings by the brand includes – Avni Period Wear Wash, Avni Menstrual Cup Wash and Avni’s antibacterial intimate wipes.

Touch Points

Avni cloth pads are handstitched by women workers only, thus the brand has been generating livelihood of underprivileged women section of the society. The startup is not just focused on being a personal care brand but also at creating menstrual-care hygiene ‘a normal’. The brand also donates menstrual health kits to the resource poor menstruators including – sex workers, waste pickers, and girls dropped out of college through their social outreach project – Project DAAG.” Avni conducts menstrual healthcare sessions with these women to fill-in for the loss of knowledge in the society. They plan to reach out to 30k women this year through their consistent efforts towards the betterment of women.

Achievements

Putting the efforts in the right direction did prove fruitful for the brand. The brand raised INR 65 Lacs in a seed round in April 2021 from WeFounderCircle. Since inception, the brand has already reached over 10000 customers.