When Anavi Kalia became a mother, she encountered a problem that millions of women experience, but few people talk about openly - Feeding.
Behind the celebrations, the joy and the visitors, she was navigating one of the most physically and emotionally demanding routines of her life: waking up multiple times through the night, worrying whether the baby is getting enough milk, dealing with discomfort, navigating conflicting advice, and trying to make it all work.
What surprised her was not just how difficult the journey could be. It was also how inadequate the solutions were. Global brands offered quality, but were expensive, difficult to service and often designed for a very different physiology. Domestic alternatives were so underpowered they get abandoned within weeks.
For a problem as important as feeding, mothers deserved better.
That realization became the starting point for Promom.
Anavi, along with Manas Tripathi who was seeing these issues closely as the new father, and Aditya Srivastava started with a simple belief: if feeding is one of the most important parts of early motherhood, the products supporting it should be designed with the same level of care and thoughtfulness.
That insight led the team down a rabbit hole. The team spent months evaluating manufacturers, benchmarking pump technologies and understanding why products that worked in hospitals often failed in Indian homes. They spoke with mothers, doctors and lactation consultants obsessively, looking beyond products to understand routines, anxieties and behaviour. They weren't trying to build a better breast pump. They were trying to understand why feeding felt so difficult in the first place.
That observation shaped the company.
Promom was never conceived as a breast-pump company. It was built around a much bigger ambition: helping mothers navigate one of the most important and stressful parts of early parenthood with greater confidence.
The timing could not be more relevant
Modern motherhood in India looks very different than it did a decade ago. More mothers are returning to work earlier. C-section rates continue to rise. Nuclear families have replaced traditional support systems. Expectations around hygiene, convenience and safety have risen dramatically. Yet the products supporting mothers have not evolved at the same pace. They want products they can trust during one of the most important transitions of their lives. What was once viewed as a niche category is increasingly becoming essential infrastructure for early parenting.
The window to build a category defining brand for early parenting support is wide open.
This is what attracted us to the category. But it is not what attracted us to Promom.
Why Promom is different
Rather than approaching the opportunity as a product import or a branding exercise, the team approached it as a problem-solving exercise. They have been obsessed with understanding the nuances of feeding, the emotional realities mothers face, and the reasons existing solutions were falling short. That obsession is visible across the company from product design to the customer support they have built and the trust they have earned.
It is also reflected in the early signals we have seen. Mothers are not simply buying a product; they are recommending it, returning for adjacent products, and increasingly treating the brand as a trusted partner during the early months of parenting.
The Fireside perspective
At Fireside, we spend a lot of time looking for categories where consumer expectations have changed faster than the products serving them. Early motherhood is one such category. The need is large and deeply important. The existing solutions don't work well enough. And a new generation of parents is raising the bar for what they expect from the brands they trust. Most people looking at this category see pumps, sterilisers and feeding accessories.
Anavi, Manas and Aditya saw something else. They saw a confidence problem.
Because mothers are not really buying pumps or warmers. They are buying reassurance during one of the most vulnerable periods of their lives.
That insight resonated deeply with us.
It is why we believe Promom has the potential to become much more than a product company. We believe it can become a trusted brand for a generation of Indian parents navigating early motherhood.
We are thrilled to partner with Anavi, Manas and Aditya as they build Promom.
Feeding is the first problem every mother wants solved. We believe Promom is building the brand that will help solve it.