Suhasini Sampath built Yogabar with her sister, and signed a 100% acquisition with ITC

The cleanest D2C-to-FMCG exit in recent Indian consumer history did not come from beauty or personal care. It came from a snack bar. On 18 January 2023, ITC Limited announced a binding term sheet to acquire 100% of Sproutlife Foods Private Limited, the parent of Yogabar, over multiple tranches across three to four years. On 4 May 2023, ITC closed the first tranche: a 39.42% equity stake for ₹175 crore. The full 100% transaction value has not been publicly disclosed.

The company being acquired was eight and a half years old, run out of Bengaluru, and led by an unusual founding team for Indian D2C: two sisters, with a third co-founder added later. Yogabar was started in 2014 by Suhasini Sampath Kumar (today Co-founder and CEO) and her sister Anindita Sampath Kumar (Co-founder and COO). Suhasini’s husband Aditya Anand joined as a third co-founder later in the journey, formally taking the CMO seat around 2019.

2014: a brand that started at a yoga studio

Yogabar’s origin is unusually concrete. In 2014, the first products began circulating through yoga studios and boutique health stores in Bengaluru, before the company turned into a real brand. The legal entity, Sproutlife Foods Private Limited, was incorporated on 13 February 2015. The first commercial product, a multigrain energy bar, went on sale in August 2015. Protein bars followed in 2018, and the catalogue expanded over time into breakfast cereals and protein shakes.

The differentiator was not the form factor, which existed, but the label. Yogabar positioned itself around no added sugar, minimally processed ingredients and a clean, readable pack. That positioning gave it a particular shelf identity at a moment when the Indian wellness consumer was learning to read labels.

An unusual founder trio: two sisters and a third

Most Indian D2C food businesses cluster around husband-wife teams or single founders. Yogabar is structured around two sisters. Suhasini Sampath Kumar qualified as a Chartered Accountant with the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India in 2006, then completed an MBA at London Business School between 2010 and 2012, including an exchange term at the Wharton School in 2011 focused on entrepreneurship. Before Yogabar she spent roughly seven years as a Manager at KPMG and worked as an Investment Associate at Multiples Alternate Asset Management.

Her sister Anindita Sampath Kumar drives operations, R&D, product, inventory and the tech surface of the business, in the COO seat. The third co-founder, Suhasini’s husband Aditya Anand, joined the company a few years after launch and leads marketing as CMO. Most early coverage of Yogabar described it as a two-sister business; the company today credits Suhasini, Anindita and Aditya as the three co-founders.

The funding arc: from yoga-studio supply to a Series A

Yogabar’s early funding ran in step with the product expansion. A first seed round closed in May 2015, broadly aligned with the brand’s commercial launch. The bigger inflection came in 2021, when the company raised a Series A of roughly US$11.6 million, led by Elevation Capital with Fireside Ventures. Pre-ITC, cumulative funding into Sproutlife Foods stood at around US$23.6 million across multiple rounds.

That capital base supported the move from a niche health-store brand into a national D2C and modern-trade brand, with distribution into supermarkets, quick-commerce surfaces and a strong direct-to-consumer presence on the company’s own website and on marketplaces.

The ITC deal: a binding term sheet and a phased close

ITC’s acquisition of Yogabar is unusual in its deal structure. On 18 January 2023, ITC announced that it had signed a binding term sheet to acquire 100% of Sproutlife Foods, with the acquisition structured to take place over multiple tranches across three to four years. On 4 May 2023, ITC closed the first tranche, acquiring a 39.42% equity stake for ₹175 crore. The remaining tranches are to follow per the deal’s terms. The total 100% transaction value has not been publicly disclosed.

The phased structure has a particular logic. It gives ITC time to integrate Yogabar into its larger FMCG portfolio while keeping the founding team in operating roles during the transition. Suhasini Sampath continues as Co-founder and CEO of Sproutlife Foods through that phased close.

What this means for Indian D2C

Yogabar is one of the cleanest examples on the Indian map of a D2C brand finding a structural home inside an Indian FMCG major. It was, in many ways, the kind of acquisition that the D2C category had been waiting for, structured, multi-tranche, founder-on, and at scale.

The brand also breaks two unwritten rules of Indian D2C exits at once. First, the company was started by two sisters rather than a husband-wife pair, an unusual structure for an Indian D2C food brand at this scale, even after Suhasini’s husband Aditya later joined as a third co-founder. Second, the acquirer was a domestic FMCG conglomerate rather than a venture-backed Indian retailer or an overseas strategic. Both choices give the Yogabar story a different texture from the rest of the D2C exit corpus.

What Indian women founders can take from the Yogabar story

Yogabar’s arc is a useful corrective to two common assumptions about the Indian D2C exit. The first is that you need a husband-and-wife structure to make a consumer company work at scale; Yogabar’s structure is a sister-plus-third team, and it scaled. The second is that the cleanest exit is to a venture-backed consumer-internet company; Yogabar went to ITC, an Indian FMCG conglomerate, in a multi-tranche structured deal designed for a long handover rather than a clean break.

For Indian women considering starting up in food and wellness, the takeaway is operational. You can build a consumer brand starting from yoga-studio supply. You can run the company as a trio rather than a couple. And the eventual home for a successful Indian D2C brand might well be a domestic FMCG major rather than a foreign strategic, with the founders kept on through the phased close, not pushed out at signing.

Frequently asked questions about Suhasini Sampath and Yogabar

Who founded Yogabar?

Yogabar was started in 2014 in Bengaluru by sisters Suhasini Sampath Kumar and Anindita Sampath Kumar. Suhasini’s husband Aditya Anand joined later as a third co-founder, formally taking the CMO role around 2019. Today, Suhasini is Co-founder and CEO, Anindita is Co-founder and COO, and Aditya Anand is Co-founder and CMO. The legal entity, Sproutlife Foods Private Limited, was incorporated on 13 February 2015.

What does Yogabar sell?

Yogabar is a D2C healthy-foods brand focused on clean-label snacking and breakfast, protein bars, energy bars, breakfast cereals, protein shakes and similar products. The company launched with multigrain energy bars in August 2015 and added protein bars in 2018; the catalogue today spans bars, cereals and protein products positioned around no added sugar and minimally processed ingredients.

How is ITC acquiring Yogabar?

On 18 January 2023, ITC announced a binding term sheet to acquire 100% of Sproutlife Foods Private Limited over multiple tranches across three to four years. On 4 May 2023, ITC closed the first tranche, acquiring a 39.42% equity stake for ₹175 crore. The full 100% acquisition is structured to follow in further tranches under the deal terms; the total transaction value for 100% has not been publicly disclosed.

What is Suhasini Sampath’s background?

Suhasini Sampath qualified as a Chartered Accountant with the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India in 2006 and went on to complete an MBA at London Business School (2010-2012), including an exchange term at the Wharton School in 2011 focused on entrepreneurship. Before Yogabar she spent roughly seven years as a Manager at KPMG and worked as an Investment Associate at Multiples Alternate Asset Management.

What is Suhasini Sampath’s net worth?

Suhasini Sampath’s personal proceeds are not publicly disclosed. The verifiable financial fact is the corporate transaction: in May 2023 ITC acquired about 39.4% of Yogabar’s parent, Sproutlife Foods, for ₹175 crore, implying a company valuation in the region of ₹450 crore, with ITC moving toward full ownership over the following years.