The category is also attracting greater investor attention
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A new crop of home-care start-ups is challenging established FMCG players by betting that Indian consumers are increasingly looking beyond basic cleaning performance towards safer ingredients, specialised products and greater transparency.
Brands such as Beco, Cleevo, Scrubsy and others are expanding across categories including dishwash, laundry, kitchen and surface care, while investors are beginning to see the segment as a larger consumer opportunity.
For Cleevo Founder Mayank Jain, the opportunity lies in making cleaner products accessible without asking consumers to pay a premium. “If you can get cleaner products at a price point where people are already paying, then the market is yours. I mean, there is enough market for you to play around,” Jain said.
Cleevo has expanded into floor, kitchen, bathroom and laundry care, with floor and kitchen cleaners currently its largest categories. Jain said the company grew tenfold between the last and current financial years and is targeting another 7-10x growth as it expands manufacturing capacity and its portfolio.
The category is also attracting greater investor attention. Arjun Vaidya, Co-founder of V3 Ventures, which led Scrubsy’s ₹27 crore seed round, said the opportunity is not simply about creating “better for you” products.
“The opportunity is the shift from unbranded and commoditised to specialised and branded, which is compounding many times faster than the category itself. Quick commerce has collapsed the distribution timeline that used to protect the incumbents — a good product now reaches national convenience-led distribution in months, not the decade of trade spend it used to take,” Vaidya said.
Beco Co-founder Aditya Ruia said changing consumer behaviour is also driving adoption, particularly among younger consumers. “What’s driving adoption is a consumer shift from ‘this works’ to ‘what’s actually in this’. Especially with urban millennials and young parents who are reading ingredient labels for cleaning products the same way they do for food and skincare now,” Ruia said.
Beco is seeing strongest traction in dishwash and laundry, followed by surface cleaners. Ruia expects clean home-care to move from a niche, premium segment to a mainstream category over the next three to five years, driven by wider product ranges, offline distribution and greater price parity with legacy brands.
Vaidya said investors are increasingly evaluating the category on gross margins, repeat purchases and product performance rather than sustainability claims alone. “Non-toxic is table stakes now, not a position,” he said, adding that Scrubsy’s performance-led positioning and ability to scale while bootstrapped and EBITDA-positive were key reasons behind the investment.
For start-ups, however, distribution remains critical. “It is a very, very strong execution category. Distribution is the motor,” Jain said.
Published on August 20, 2026
