Anindita Sampath Kumar
Co-founder, Yoga Bar
Alumna, IIM Calcutta; Sloan Fellow, Stanford Graduate School of Business
About
Anindita Sampath, also written Anindita Sampath Kumar, co-founded Yoga Bar, the Bengaluru health-food brand, with her sister Suhasini Sampath in 2014. She came up with the brand's name in New York in 2012: after a yoga class, while picking up a protein bar at a Trader Joe's, she said that if the sisters made a similar healthy bar she would call it Yoga Bar. At the time she was working in a managerial role at Ernst & Young in New York. She moved back to India in 2014 to build the business with her sister, which launched multigrain energy bars in August 2015 and protein bars in 2018 before adding breakfast cereals, oats and peanut butter. Fireside Ventures, an early investor, describes her as an operations-focused leader who has worked at EY and Cognizant in transaction and business advisory; it lists her as an alumna of IIM Calcutta and a Sloan Fellow of Stanford Graduate School of Business. According to FY25 filings she was the largest shareholder, with 36.78%, before ITC completed its takeover of the parent, Sproutlife Foods, in September 2026.
ITC first invested in Sproutlife Foods in 2023, buying 39.4% for about ₹175 crore, and later lifted its holding to 47.5%. On 28 September 2026 it bought the remaining 52.5%, held by the founders and other shareholders, for about ₹645 crore in a secondary deal, making Sproutlife a wholly owned subsidiary. Sproutlife's turnover rose from ₹108 crore in FY24 to ₹200 crore in FY25 and ₹452 crore in FY26, according to ITC's disclosure. Forbes India reported in 2022 that the sisters had relied on personal savings, a loan and a government food grant before raising ₹1.2 crore from Fireside Ventures in 2019 and later backing from Elevation Capital.
Source: inc42.com
