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Pi Nutrition - A nextgen Premium Sports Drink

What is Pi Nutrition?

Pi Nutrition is a DIPP, Govt of India recognized health and wellness startup that brings consumers great tasting, high quality, healthier nutrition solutions for a stronger and healthier world.

Tell us more about your team ?

We are a team of two young entrepreneurs with Pharmaceuticals & Health care background. I and my partner Sumit Salia both graduated from L M College of Pharmacy, Ahmedabad (Gujarat University). 

Later Sumit went to USA to pursue MBA and I completed M. Pharma from Manipal University. Sumit is a born entrepreneur. During college days he ran BET (B. Pharma Entrenched Test) classes. After MBA, Sumit ran distribution business and later founded Summit Nutritions (USA) in 2012. Today, Summit Nutritions markets premium - certified Dietary Supplement products across US and India. 

Back in India, I worked with Wockhardt Ltd & Torrent Pharma in brand management & international marketing respectively. My last assignment was with NSF International (USA) in certification industry. I was looking after South Asia, Middle-East and Southeast Asia Business development. During my tenure at NSF International, I got the opportunity to better understand Global Nutrition business and interact with industry experts. My profile was to interact and work with C-Suites. Insights gained from this became one of the reasons to found Pi NUTRITION.

How did you come up with the idea ?​​

The idea of Pi NUTRITION was born on a journey from my hometown to Ahmedabad. I observed, people have very limited choices when it comes to soft beverages. Can we make these beverages healthier and nutritious? That's the question I asked myself and the idea of Pi NUTRITION was born.

What problem are you solving ?

Most soft beverages including fruit drinks come loaded with sugar. Though people have choice to go for sugar-free variants, low calories doesn't make it essentially healthier. Lack of value addition in soft beverages pose a huge health and wellness challenge. Pi NUTRITION brings consumer great tasting, high quality, healthier nutrition solutions for a stronger and healthier world.

How does it work ?

Pi SPORT is the first brand we launched in May. Any sports, athletic or physical activity leads to heavy sweat and hence, electrolytes and energy loss. This ultimately results in poor body performance.

If a consumer drinks Pi SPORT during such activities, key ingredients like Electrolytes, Vitamins, Minerals, Glucose and Natural fruit juice help them optimize body performance with refreshing delight.

What is your target market ?

Sports enthusiasts, professional athletes, emerging athletes, fitness and wellness seekers in the age group of 15 to 35 years are our ideal consumers. Certainly, we don’t want to ignore foodies as well. We recently launched Pi SPORT in Ahmedabad, Mumbai and Delhi-NCR. Soon, we are expanding into many other cities.

What is your competitive advantage ?

Innovation and flexibility are the key advantages we have over competitors. 

How much time did it take you from conceptualization of 'your venture' to actually launching it in the market ?

It took us six months from conceptualization to launching of Pi SPORT. For formulation development we collaborated with Orana from Denmark. We have also collaborated with DSM Nutrition from Netherlands to source premium vitamins and minerals. Taste optimization itself took 3 months. Being a sports drink, Pi SPORT must taste good in chilled, semi-chilled and room temperature conditions. We are very proud that we achieved the perfect taste we wanted.  

How do you plan to market your product? What are your customer acquisition strategies ?

We have adopted experience marketing strategy for consumer acquisition. Taste campaigns, Beverage partnerships with schools/ colleges/ clubs/ concerts/ tournaments/ academies, adopting Athletes & Academy etc. are key activities for consumer acquisition. We have gained significant traction with this strategy. Digital marketing along with in-out store customized branding help us create awareness. 

What is the revenue model ?

At present, we generate revenues from finished products sold to Retailers, Distributors, Modern trade, e-commerce retailers, Vending agencies etc. In future, we will generate revenues from fountain syrups and concentrates sold to restaurants, convenience stores, theatres, cafes, bars etc. Additionally, we are also looking at Brand Licensing and Exports to Middle-East, Africa and South Asia.

Tell us more about your team ?

Our vision is to bring consumers great tasting, high quality, healthier nutrition solutions for a stronger and healthier world. We want to become a total health care and nutrition provider. In future we want to diversify into dietary supplements, sports apparels, sports equipments, sports academies, gyms & food chains that serve nutritious food. All these industries play important role in total health care.

What sort of support and feedback are you looking from the community ?

There are multiple ways the community can help us. Try our products, write reviews on social media, help us in public relations, help us in fund raising, critical feedback on products, help us create awareness about Pi SPORT - a Premium Sports Drink.



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Jatin Chaudhary
Salesman @eChaiVentures l Good at managing WhatsApp groups n organizing high quality, large gatherings at low cost :-) l Observer l Fmr Global Shaper @WEF

@Kishor - How did get your startup recognized by DIPP? What was the process and how much time it took for it?

Kishor Kapadiya
Founder & CEO @ Pi NUTRITION | Former BDM, South Asia @ NSF International | Former AM, International Marketing @ Torrent Pharma | Former PE, Vaccines @ Wockhardt

@jatin10
After the GoI's notification of not requiring recommendation letter of a nodal institution for Start-up Recognition, we applied for recognition. We also uploaded presentation comprising of various details expected by DIPP. After some 10 days we got the recognition certificate.

Aditya Dave
Soil testing for farmers

In this market comprising of big products like gatorade, where do you see yourself in next 5 years ?

Hanuj Tilwani
Founder's Office at DemandFarm | Ex-Founder at Miho (B2B SaaS)

What is your plan to compete with the existing similar products in the market?

Kishor Kapadiya
Founder & CEO @ Pi NUTRITION | Former BDM, South Asia @ NSF International | Former AM, International Marketing @ Torrent Pharma | Former PE, Vaccines @ Wockhardt

@aditya & @hanuj
Our core strategy to reach consumers is Experience marketing. Awareness of Sports Drinks as such is low and hence it's more important to increase awareness about the importance of sports drinks rather than competing with rivals. We have many milestones to achieve. Geographical expansion is top priority. Robust distribution network is extremely important and we are working on it. 5 years down the line we see Pi NUTRITION as a total sports nutrition solutions provider.

Dhruv Gupta
A researcher turned entrepreneur, a computer scientist by certificate and a design thinker by training who did his first startup at 18. He has built 3 (three) tech startups till now and has been part of the journey for many startups as consultant, mentor and investor.

@kishor-kapadiya - With the mentioned target market, don't you think having a Brand Ambassador could help you in establishing PiSPORT as a trusted brand and help you reaching out to your customers easily..?? If 'Yes', Do you already have one (Who?) or trying to get someone (Who?) on-board..??

Kishor Kapadiya
Founder & CEO @ Pi NUTRITION | Former BDM, South Asia @ NSF International | Former AM, International Marketing @ Torrent Pharma | Former PE, Vaccines @ Wockhardt

@Guptaji
We certainly want a Brand ambassador and it will definitely help increase awareness and reach. We are working on the same. It's difficult to name a particular person at the moment.

Vishal Chopra
Business Data Analytics Consultant

How are you placing your products in the market?

Kashi Financial
CA Bharatkumar Koshti : He is the Qualified Chartered Accountant from India , having an extensive experience in the field of Auditing , Accounting and Financial Services. He had worked for the many corporate (Public and Private) based in India and Dubai for the Auditing Services during his career, after considering the vast experience with various corporate services at domestic and globally he started his own advisory and consultancy services firm of Kashi Financial Services.

Feel free to contact us for fund raising and strategic advisory services for the scaling of the business in Pan India and UAE.