Backed by senior leaders from ChrysCapital, BCG, Shyft, and HexaHealth, the performance footwear startup marks its retail debut with a collection built on evolutionary design

New Delhi: RARA Barefoot, a home-grown performance footwear startup building India’s first barefoot sneakers, has raised $500,000 in an oversubscribed pre-seed round and announced the launch of its debut sneaker line.

The round brings together a strong group of early-stage backers — founders and senior operators from Zomato, Urban Company, Tata 1mg, Shyft, and HexaHealth, along with Managing Directors and Partners from ChrysCapital and BCG.

The fresh capital will support RARA’s national D2C rollout, the establishment of select offline retail partnerships, and local manufacturing scale-up as the brand prepares to introduce barefoot sneakers to Indian consumers.

“Our early backers have built unicorns and opened new categories,” said Varun Mimani, Co-founder, RARA Barefoot.
“Having that perspective at our table gives us the confidence to build RARA into a brand that redefines how India thinks about performance footwear,” added Manas Tripathi, Co-founder, RARA Barefoot.

RARA is part of a fast-growing global barefoot footwear movement — shoes engineered to restore the body’s natural biomechanics rather than constrain them. The brand calls the human foot a “biomechanical masterpiece” and distils its mission in the line “evolution in your size.”

“Evolution has spent four million years in R&D. Our job is simply to let the foot perform the way it was built to,” added Tripathi.

Each RARA sneaker follows three key design principles:

• A flat sole with zero heel-toe drop

• A wide toe box for natural toe spread

• A flexible sole that bends with the foot’s 33 joints

All RARA sneakers are manufactured in India, combining global barefoot design philosophy with locally sourced, high-performance materials. The founders describe shoemaking as “closer to engineering than fashion” and spent two years perfecting the right balance of flexibility, grip, and durability.

“Varun and Manas bring together strong design thinking with operational excellence. Having worked with them closely at 1mg, I’m confident they have the mindset, skill, and drive to deeply understand customers and build a scalable organisation around that insight,” said Prashant Tandon, Co-founder & CEO, Tata 1mg.

“Barefoot walking is an established global category, and they’ve infused smart design into functional performance at highly competitive price points. I wish them the very best as they unlock this market segment.”

Adding to that, Akshat Babbar, Managing Director, ChrysCapital, commented:

“Barefoot won’t stay niche — it’s too logical once people experience it. Once you feel the difference, adoption is only a matter of time. The repeat intent and advocacy in early adopters tell you where this is headed. The space that RARA intends to create holds a lot of promise, and I have a ton of confidence in the folks steering this ship.”

According to Grand View Research, the Indian sneaker market is projected to reach USD 4,665.9 million by 2030, growing at a CAGR of 5.7%, creating room for performance-wellness hybrids like RARA. Founded in 2024 by Varun Mimani and Manas Tripathi, RARA Barefoot is an India-based performance footwear company pioneering barefoot sneakers. By combining evolutionary design with modern aesthetics, RARA aims to create footwear that lets the body move naturally — the way nature intended.