For decades, luggage has largely been designed with a one-size-fits-all approach. But for many women travellers, the experience is rarely universal: trolley handles sit too high, compartments fail to organise what they actually carry, and functionality often comes at the cost of aesthetics.
Bengaluru-based travel gear startup NORI wants to change that with ergonomic cabin suitcases, modular organisers, and colour-coordinated products.
Founded in 2025, the brand is building luggage, bags, organisers, and accessories specifically around how women pack, move, and travel. NORI is essentially betting on the premise that thoughtfully designed travel gear for women is an underserved category waiting to scale.
The idea emerged from the founders' own experiences with the gap in the market.
Meenakshi Vyas, Co-founder and CEO, completed an MBA from KJ Somaiya, Mumbai, before spending over a decade in ecommerce at ShopClues, Myntra, PharmEasy, and Reliance Retail. Rashika Nayak, Co-founder and Chief Design Officer, studied fashion and lifestyle accessories at NIFT Bhopal and spent ten years designing bags, with stints at Urbantribe and ETC Design Studio, where she was CEO.
Working across the industry, Nayak repeatedly found that the few products marketed to women fell short on weight, functionality, and affordability, a gap Vyas had also been thinking about independently before the two connected.
According to myBiz, the corporate booking platform of MakeMyTrip, one in every six corporate flyers in India in 2024 was a woman. India's broader travel market, meanwhile, is forecast to nearly double by 2035, growing from Rs 21 trillion to just under Rs 42 trillion, according to the World Travel & Tourism Council's latestEconomic Impact Research.
As more women travel frequently for work and leisure, Vyas believes one question is increasingly relevant: What are they travelling with? This question shaped NORI’s product philosophy.
Wide product range covering diverse use cases
The product range covers most trip types a woman is likely to take: weekend getaways, longer holidays, work travel, and everyday organisation. Products include shoe organisers, makeup slings, innerwear organisers, packing cubes, weekender bags, and cabin suitcases, with prices ranging from Rs 999 to Rs 9,999.
All products are shipped pan-India, with next-day delivery in select cities. Across categories, products are available in shades such as caramel, old money brown, millennial pink, cream, and moss.
The cabin suitcase in NORI’s latest launch. It is available in three colours: Butterscotch, the flagship shade, Old Money Brown, and Millennial Pink.
NORI's cabin suitcases in Butterscotch, Old Money Brown, and Millennial Pink shades.
One of the defining tweaks in this product is the trolley height, which has been lowered by two centimetres from industry standards to better suit the average height of women. This reduces strain on the elbow and shoulder when pulling a packed bag.
The founders say the product went through four development phases, extensive testing, and months of real-world travel before launch. This included heat tests up to 80 degrees Celsius, wheels tested across 32 kilometres, handles jolted 1,500 times, and repeated drop tests that went well beyond standard limits. “After a point, throwing the bag from two floors became a fun pastime,” says Nayak.
The suitcase is made of 70-80% virgin polycarbonate. This material, the founders say, supports a six-year warranty on the product. Other features include a padded trolley handle, a D-shaped grip for easier lifting and placing in overhead cabins, a built-in weight indicator, a two-inch zip expander, side hooks for hanging bags at the airport, and detachable wheels that can be replaced individually.
But the suitcase is only one part of a wider range built around the same thinking.
Built around the whole trip
Organisers were the brand’s first products, and they continue to be its largest category. The sets are designed around different trip durations, with lighter combinations for cabin travel and larger sets for longer holidays.
NORI's organiser range: packing cubes, makeup slings, and innerwear organisers in colour-matched sets
The idea is to recreate the mind map of a wardrobe inside a suitcase. “When you live at home, your hand automatically knows where everything is. The moment you pack a bag, that map disappears. We wanted to bring it back,” says Vyas.
NORI’s product range also includes a convertible weekender tote built on a structured base that can be removed after arrival to transform the bag into a lighter everyday bag. Accessories include foldable totes that double up as bag charms and replacement suitcase wheels in different colours.
NORI's weekender bags in shades of Moss, Millennial Pink, Old Money Brown, and Butterscotch
Colour coordination is vital to the brand's design language. "Travel is a form of self-expression. We wanted the luggage to speak the same language as the rest of your outfit," says Nayak.
The tones are all solids, deliberately muted rather than being loud, chosen to complement what women are wearing. Packing cubes, shoe organisers, slings, and accessories are all designed to match each other. For instance, a moss cube set can be paired with a moss sling or a moss dangler.
NORI's travel range styled together: cabin suitcases, weekender bags, and organisers
The thinking extends to what Vyas calls the "airport fit": women already coordinate outfits, accessories, even water bottles, she says, but luggage was the one element that never matched. "We don't want to compromise fun for functionality. You deserve both,” says Vyas.
Early traction and the road ahead
The brand has a team of seven at its Bengaluru office, which serves as a design studio, warehouse, and content space. The team is also supplemented by four AI agents handling analysis, development, and customer success.
Since launching its first organiser range in October 2025, the brand has grown from a revenue of Rs 90,000 in its first month to Rs 15 lakh in April 2026, putting it on track towards a Rs 2 crore annual run-rate.
The startup says it has served more than 4,000 customers so far, entirely through its own website, without any selling through marketplaces. The brand is also now available through credit card on the marketplace of Scapia, a travel-focused fintech company.
Organisers continue to drive repeat purchases; the founders say there is a 20% repeat purchase rate within 60 days. They also say the brand’s net promoter score, a measure of customer satisfaction on a scale of 10, consistently remains above 9.
NORI recently raised $350,000 in a pre-seed funding round led by Rebalance, an early-stage accelerator and angel community focused on diverse founders, with participation from VSS Investco, Paytm founder and CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma, and marquee angel investors across consumer and ecommerce brands.
The funding will be used to expand the brand’s product portfolio and scale digital and offline distribution. “Our near-term goal is to reach Rs 1 crore in monthly revenue,” says Vyas.
NORI is now working on medium-sized and large suitcases as well as backpacks. It is selectively exploring offline retail and planning a pop-up at the Broadway store in Bandra, Mumbai.
For now, the founders say they want to keep the NORI community relatively close-knit while the product line evolves. The long-term ambition is broader: to build a NORI product for every kind of trip a woman takes across different stages of life.
Even the brand's name reflects that thinking. NORI is named after the seaweed paper used to wrap sushi, a reference to the idea of luggage as a form of wrapping and carrying. The founders intentionally avoided giving the name a rigid meaning, hoping the brand continues to adapt around the lives of its customers as it grows.
“If you think of taking time off as a woman, you should be able to think of NORI,” says Vyas.
Edited by Swetha Kannan
Original Article
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