There is a point in every Ironman where the body stops responding. The swim and the 180-km ride are done. What remains is a marathon on legs that have already worked for hours. Athletes call it the dark place. Avnish Chhabria has been there on the course, and several times off it.
He grew up between a government school in Surat and Scindia School in Gwalior. A disciplinary incident that led to a serious ligament injury ended his boarding school years. Back in Mumbai, he finished school, went on to Nottingham for two master’s degrees and a PhD on low-cost carriers. That work took him to Tony Fernandes’ strategy team during AirAsia’s India entry. He then joined Boohoo in its early years. He did not stay long in either role.
He returned to India to build his own ventures. Aqua V, a vitamin-infused water, was shut down by regulation in 2008. Stylista, a designer-led high-street platform, sold to Myntra for $4.5 million within 18 months.
Scootzy, a logistics venture, was acquired by Swiggy. Not every attempt worked. A coconut water business in Sri Lanka exited at a fraction of expectations. The pattern, however, held: each exit or failure led to another start.
Through these transitions, fitness remained constant. One question stayed with him: why does one athlete sustain performance longer than another?
Cellular Science
In 2016, he wired the last $100,000 in his account to Johns Hopkins to fund research. “I wanted to understand endurance at a cellular level,” he says. The work ran for over three years. Bringing that science into a product proved harder. Contract manufacturers were unwilling to take on the formulation.
“Thirty to forty contract development and manufacturing organisations (CDMO) said they couldn’t do it,” he recalls. Larger players demanded minimum orders that were not feasible at the time. A smaller unit in Nashik eventually agreed.
What followed was an extended trial phase. Over 18 months, more than 600 formulations failed. Around Rs 55 lakh was spent on raw materials sourced globally. A planned Rs 2 crore fundraise yielded Rs 90 lakh. The manufacturer, unpaid for long periods, was given 5% equity. At that point, Chhabria held about half the company and still did not have a final product.
The initial market was not India. Daily Greens, an effervescent multivitamin, had a purchase order from Walmart in the US. The brand name had been acquired from Boots in the United Kingdom. In March 2020, the lockdown halted shipments and the order lapsed. With inventory ready but no export channel, he listed the product on Amazon in India. Early sales were modest but scaled quickly over days. Operations were basic: labelling at home and periodic trips to Bhiwandi for dispatc
By the end of 2020, monthly revenue had reached about Rs 40 lakh. Ownership was consolidated again. The business, now under the Wellbeing Nutrition brand, began to take shape. Institutional capital followed. Fireside Ventures invested $2 million, but delayed signing until a co-founder was in place. “They said the company needed a second line,” Chhabria says. After multiple introductions, Saurabh Kapoor joined with ESOPs.
Rs 30 Crore Monthly Run Rate
The product strategy centred on delivery formats rather than only ingredients. Slow-release capsules designed to release over several hours and liposomal formats aimed at improving absorption became core to the portfolio. The positioning was to bridge clinical research and consumer nutrition.
Financials moved steadily. When Hindustan Unilever invested Rs 68 crore about 35 months ago, the company was doing roughly Rs 4 crore in monthly revenue. The latest monthly run rate is around Rs 30 crore. The products are also used by BCCI for its athletes, indicating some institutional adoption.
The next phase was consolidation. Seven bidders expressed interest in acquiring the company.
Chhabria chose USV, a privately held pharmaceutical group known for brands such as Glycomet GP and Sebamed. The deal values Wellbeing Nutrition at Rs 1,583 crore.
The rationale is adjacency. Wellbeing already sells a natural diabetes management product. USV has a large presence in diabetes prescriptions. The combined approach is to intervene earlier in the care cycle through nutrition.
Both are also working on oral GLP-1 formats. USV sought full ownership, but Chhabria retained about 21% and will stay on for two years. His personal proceeds are estimated at around Rs 800 crore, while ESOP holders are expected to receive about Rs 150 crore.
The contract defines a timeline. The underlying approach suggests continuity. The same cycle — question, build, stall, restart — has repeated across ventures. The context changes, but the operating pattern does not.
For Chhabria, the initial question was about endurance in sport. The answer translated into a business built through iteration rather than a single breakthrough. The outcome is a scaled nutrition company with a pharmaceutical partner. The process, by his account, is still open-ended.