How AntiNorm Plans To Disrupt India’s Beauty Market With Multipurpose Products

In the early 2020s, Aparna Saxena was at a crossroads in her career. An alumnus of Binghamton University, New York, her journey in Silicon Valley began in 2017 at CircleUp, an investment and fintech operator catering to early stage consumer brands. Working as a startup investment analyst, she watched the rise of transformative brands like Pop & Bottle, Youth to the People and Halo Top, businesses that turned minimalism, functionality and storytelling into full-fledged consumer movements and solved user pain points with precision and purpose.

Two years later, she moved to Good Capital, a Delhi-based VC firm investing in early stage tech startups. “When it started funding consumer brands in 2021, the parallels were clear. Breakout brands — whether in tech or consumer space — delve deep into critical problems and develop simplified but hard-to-replicate innovations,” she said. This product philosophy sparked the concept of AntiNorm, a minimalist and multifunctional beauty and personal care (BPC) brand set to be launched in June 2025.

But first things first. After returning to India, Saxena felt a sense of chaos in the BPC space. Her shelves were full of global brands, but few were suitable for the Indian context. “I was using products made for a different climate, a different pace of life. And my skin and hair were the first to rebel,” she recalled.

Even the glut of local beauty products often failed to deliver the miracle fixes they promised. But they usually left shoppers overwhelmed and uncertain about what to choose. It indicated a deep disconnect between what was feeding the beauty business and what made sense for Indian women. 

Meanwhile, Saxena was increasingly drawn towards the BPC industry, not as an investor but as a brand builder. For someone who had built her career spotting white spaces before they turned into trends, a $28 Bn Indian BPC market (by 2030) was a huge innovation scope.

“Urban Indian women, especially working women from Tier I and II cities need products that seamlessly integrate into their lifestyles — formulas that simplify care by doing the job of many products, deliver visible results quickly and offer protection from pollution and other environmental stressors,” she said.

Saxena built the brand around the same principles. However, it took the team nearly two years to refine formulations at a laboratory in Gurugram (they have a testing/formulation lab via a third party). Although the brand uses clean ingredients and discards certain chemicals and ingredients, the product line was verified with FSSAI, ISO and GMP to ensure it met industry standards.

AntiNorm will make its debut with just three multifunctional offerings: A no-fuss dry shampoo, an all-in-one hair cream for post-shower care and styling and nourishing lip treatment, with prices ranging between INR 899 and INR 1,599 (more on its products and product rationale later). 

AntiNorm raised INR 5 Cr in pre-seed funding even before its official launch. Half this amount came from Rukam Capital, a VC firm investing in early stage consumer and tech startups with high growth potential. 

Decluttering Beauty Care Through Activity Mapping & Tech Lens

In a consumer survey that the brand undertook, 46% of women aged 25 to 34 said they would willingly reduce their skincare and hair care regimens if new products could deliver similar or improved results. When asked to document their daily beauty routines, most participants listed eight to 10 steps. However, nearly 70% of those measures were discarded when people were pressed to identify what they could eliminate.

The data revealed what Saxena had long believed — the beauty industry was built to sell more instead of solve better. The new brand in the works wanted to challenge that foundation.

The team started by deconstructing existing products and analysing formulas for better efficacy until someone jokingly said: It’s a cream, not an app, you can’t keep adding to it. That chance remark triggered the realisation: True multifunctionality is possible if you research enough and club the right ingredients.

Coming from a background in tech and consumer investing, Saxena also approached product development like a SaaS roadmap, with user friction at the centre, and every decision, including business vision, direction and progress, flowed from there.  

“That product-first mindset, common in Silicon Valley but rare among BPC brands, became a guiding principle at AntiNorm. We started treating beauty like tech,” the founder said. 

A Deep Dive Into Products, Packaging And Sales

The brand is rolling out three beauty products formulated to multitask for Indian requirements and climate. Its dry shampoo powder, for instance, uses seven clean ingredients to absorb oil, boost hair volume and clean the scalp. This promises to replace five products in a typical haircare routine.

Another flagship is a multitasking lip treatment that hydrates, plumps and protects while delivering a glossy finish. Made with peptides, nourishing oils and UV filters, it smooths texture, softens fine lines and consolidates the benefits of six products in one. The inclusion of avocado oil, known for its low oxidative stress, makes it particularly suitable for the Indian climate.

The third is a non-greasy hair cream. Applied after a shower, it enables an air-dried look that mimics a salon blow dry and works across all Indian hair types, replacing 11 different hair care products from one’s routine.

Packaging things right was another critical challenge. An early attempt to unify packaging across SKUs quickly gave way to practicality. “We soon realised that functionality had to take precedence, and convenience could not be compromised for aesthetics. Therefore, packaging now aligns with the product it holds,” explained Saxena.

For now, AntiNorm will sell its products via its D2C website. This will allow the brand to own the discovery, delivery, and feedback loop, which is essential not only for customer acquisition but also for retention. “We want to be the brand that stays on the customer’s shelf, not the one she tries once and forgets.”

Of course, expansion is inevitable, but the founder wants it to happen selectively. “We will be present on curated marketplaces and offline touchpoints, but only where we can maintain our quality and customer intimacy. We will not compromise on that.”

Its marketing will be intentionally low-decibel. Its focus will be customer education, product simplification and beauty care myth-busting. 

Rukam Capital’s Bet On AntiNorm  

Rukam Capital, which usually steers clear of pre-revenue bets, backed AntiNorm even before its launch — a rare move driven by the sheer clutter in the BPC space and the need for focussed, innovation-led solutions.

“Beauty and personal care brands are only as strong as their founders, as it is critical to understand consumer psychology to develop star products. In Saxena, we have found someone who understands the data and product nuances. We intend to be a sounding board for her wherever it is required,” said Archana Jahagirdar, founder and managing partner, Rukam Capital.

For Saxena, the alignment was immediate. “When I first discussed AntiNorm with Rukam Capital, I half-expected to spend a lot of time explaining why the space needed a rethink. Instead, they immediately pushed the conversation into how to use data for product development. It felt less like pitching and more like building a brand together and co-designing a product roadmap,” she said.

How AntiNorm Plans To Build The Forward Momentum

Over the next year, it plans to launch 8–12 multifunctional SKUs that can substitute nearly 50 existing products. It will ramp up R&D and refine its products based on user feedback and real-world insights.

“The philosophy of our future products will remain the same: Solving real problems with fewer and better solutions without sacrificing efficacy or user experience,” said Saxena. Even as it grows, maintaining viable, healthy margins and optimising operations will remain key priorities.    

The founder envisions AntiNorm as a category-defining brand in the next five years. It will also expand into skincare, haircare, and, eventually, men’s personal care. 

She is making her case in a multi-billion-dollar industry where a gold rush is happening, with new brands coming out at a dizzying pace, and the landscape is conditioned to provide more. 

If it succeeds, it won’t be because it has been most vocal about its multifunctional product line. It will be because, in a world of excess, it has made a compelling case for providing just enough to meet its users’ requirements beautifully.