Copper left the Indian kitchen. Ritikam is betting families want it back.

Bijaya Krushna Mohapatra has grown the Bengaluru brand to a reported ₹1 lakh a month and 500-plus homes. His own stated next task is making it work without him.

Bijay Krushna Mohaptra, Founder of Ritikam

Somewhere between steel and non-stick, the Indian home quietly stopped using copper, brass and bronze. The metals did not vanish. They moved to the back of the cupboard, brought out for a festival and then put away again.

Ritikam, founded by Bijaya Krushna Mohapatra in Bengaluru, is built on the argument that this was a loss worth reversing, and that the reversal should happen in daily use rather than in a display cabinet. In his nomination for the D2C Brand Champion recognition, Mohapatra writes that a home should reflect the values of the family living in it, and that copper, brass and bronze once carried a beauty and sense of occasion that convenience displaced.

The business is early. Mohapatra reports monthly revenue of ₹1 lakh and more than 500 families served, with the brand present on its own website, Google My Business, WhatsApp Business, Instagram, Facebook and major marketplaces. What he is trying to build on top of that base is narrower than the product range suggests.

The clearest shift, by his account, is in what Ritikam says it is for. He writes that the Unhu Growth Circle gave him a structured way to rework product-market fit, ideal customer, positioning and value proposition, and that it pushed him to question his own assumptions rather than follow what competitors were doing. The positioning he landed on is specific: helping modern Indian families host beautifully and create homes people remember. Copper, brass and bronze are how that happens, not the point in themselves.

That distinction matters commercially. A brand selling metal competes on price and finish. A brand selling thoughtful hosting competes on occasion, gifting and repeat purchase, which is the direction Mohapatra's stated priorities point. He lists four: a consistent social media growth system across Instagram and Facebook, sharper positioning around hosting, marketplace expansion beyond the current base, and corporate gifting partnerships.

The fifth priority is the honest one. Mohapatra writes that the Growth Circle helped him identify his biggest constraint as founder dependency, and that he is now building basic operating systems and delegation so growth does not rest entirely on his personal involvement. Naming that constraint at ₹1 lakh a month is earlier than most founders name it, which is usually somewhere past the point where it has already cost them something.

On why Ritikam deserves recognition, he does not lead with the numbers. He writes that the case rests on clarity, discipline and commitment, and on what the foundation is being turned into rather than what it currently is. The 500 families and the marketplace presence are, in his framing, the starting position.

It is a modest claim, and a checkable one. Ritikam has a year to show whether a brand built around hosting can outgrow the founder who defined it. ~Editor Shobhit Mehandiratta