How Nivia Plans a $1B Sports Brand | Kapil Thirani x Nivia | One in a Billion | Ep 19

The Brand Older Than Independent India… How does a 90-year-old name end up in every Indian household without a single ad?

In this episode of One in a Billion, Kapil Thirani sits down with Dhruv Kharbanda (Product Development Officer, Nivia Sports) to break down how a family business born in Sialkot in 1934 became the brand behind football, basketball, and volleyball in school grounds across India.

Nivia started under great-grandfather Nihal Chand, survived Partition, and rebuilt from scratch when the family migrated to India and settled into the new sports manufacturing hubs of Jalandhar and Meerut, and the mission has stayed the same since 1960: build a sports brand made for India, by India.

What followed was six decades of quiet, stubborn category-building:

• From India's first stitched leather volleyball in 1960 to the country's first moulded basketball unit
• Replacing Puma as the official ball of the ISL, even when players first refused to play with it
• The 2011 FIFA friendly, when India watched Messi play with their ball
• The Dominator, now one of India's top-three footballs, born from an American export order
• Becoming the #1 selling badminton shoe brand in India, quantity-wise
• A partnership with Flipkart that built entire categories, gym gloves, orthopaedics, and bags that didn't exist in India before

Dhruv unpacks the real barriers holding Indian sports manufacturing back: commitment, capital, and mindset. Why FIFA-grade balls took six years to master, the philosophy of criticising your own product before the market does, and the museum that houses Dhyan Chand's Olympic hockey stick, a Pele-signed ball, and Sachin's double-hundred bat.

It all builds toward one audacious goal: India's first $1 billion sports brand by 2034, the company's 100th year.

A must-watch for founders, manufacturing operators, and anyone building a brand for India that the world will eventually notice.

CHAPTERS

00:00 Coming Up

01:20 Introduction

02:27 How Nivia Started 90 Years Ago

06:40 How Nivia Built Affordable Sports Goods for India

12:00 How Nivia Navigated Global Sports Brands Entering India

19:53 How Nivia Made FIFA Quality Footballs Using Its Manufacturing Expertise

24:33 Nivia’s Expansion Into New Sports Categories and Flipkart’s Role in Growth

30:16 How Nivia Became a Household Brand Without Celebrity Endorsements

37:50 The Story Behind Nivia’s Museum

40:50 Nivia’s Online Journey and Its Ambition in Shoes

50:12 Nivia’s Goals for the Coming Years

52:57 How Nivia Thinks About Premiumisation and Building Brands on the Platform

1:00:56 Closing Thoughts

#NiviaSports #StartupStory #MadeInIndia #IndianSports #FlipkartSeller #Entrepreneurship #SportsManufacturing #IndianStartups #BrandStory #ISL