India’s insurgent consumer brands continue to outpace the market, reaching USD 7.5 billion in FY25, a 3.75 times increase compared with FY20
India’s ‘insurgent’ consumer brands are finding it difficult to break past the Rs 500 crore mark. While the number of such brands has grown 34 per cent in the financial year 2025 as compared to FY24, only 22 per cent of them has crossed the Rs 500 crore revenue mark.
A report by Bain & Company and DSG has revealed that the number of insurgent brands in the report’s insurgence index, defined as with revenues above Rs 100 crore, a three-year revenue Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) above 30 per cent and capital efficiency of greater than 1.5, in FY25, were 39 in number, a 34 per cent YoY growth.
“Only 22 per cent of Indian consumer insurgents over Rs 100 Cr in revenue in FY25 crossed Rs 500 crore, demonstrating that sustained breakout growth is difficult,” the report pointed out. On a positive note, India’s insurgent consumer brands continue to outpace the market, reaching USD 7.5 billion in FY25, a 3.75 times increase compared with FY20. These brands are growing 1.5 to 5 times their respective categories and are building new segments at breakneck speed.
The report defined insurgent brands as companies that were incorporated after 2007 and have raised at least USD 3 million in cumulative funding since 2015. Revenue criteria have been revised to Rs 100 crore from the Rs 75 crore or more used in previous editions.
New Brands And Challenges
19 new companies including Indus Valley, Burma Burma Restaurant, Deconstruct, The Health Factory, Bare Autonomy have qualified for the index in FY25, the report added. These new Insurgex Index brands generated a combined USD 600 million in revenue in FY25. With these additions, the Insurgex Index cohort (spanning FY23 to FY25) now includes 60 brands.
The report mentioned that 29 of 133 insurgents (over Rs 100 crore revenue in FY25) have crossed Rs 500 crore in revenue. The research showed that 85 per cent of companies that fail to grow blame internal barriers, not the market.
“For insurgents, this is the central challenge of achieving scale: Growth brings complexity, slows decision making, and weakens the founder’s mentality that gave them an edge in the first place. The goal is to become a ‘scale insurgent,’ one that captures the benefits of size without losing the speed, ownership, or customer obsession that drove early success,” the report added.
