TechnoSport, IIT Delhi partner to build India’s sportswear R&D base

Homegrown activewear brand TechnoSport has partnered with IIT Delhi to develop performance sportswear for Indian athletes, committing ₹4.5 crore over three years to research, prototyping, and sports-textile capabilities.

The Memorandum of Understanding with the Atal Incubation Centre (AIC) at IIT Delhi will establish the TechnoSport Center for Research and Entrepreneurship in Sports Textile (T-CREST) at IIT Delhi’s Sonipat campus. The centre will focus on translating athlete requirements into sport-specific products, initially covering endurance running, badminton, cricket, volleyball and soccer.

“India has the scientific talent, manufacturing depth and sporting ambition to create world-class performance sportswear here,” TechnoSport co-founder and managing director Sunil Jhunjhunwala said.

He added that T-CREST would combine scientific research with the company’s experience in textiles, product development and manufacturing.

The partnership marks a shift in TechnoSport’s product-development strategy. While the company has built its business around activewear, it is now looking to develop products designed specifically for competitive sport and athletes competing at national and international levels.

The company currently produces more than one lakh garments a day and expects to manufacture around 35 million garments in 2026. TechnoSport has also reported approximately 40% year-on-year growth over the past four to five years, according to ETRetail.

T-CREST will also function as an incubation platform for sports-textile startups. TechnoSport could provide seed funding of up to ₹20 lakh to selected ventures, while startups may gain access to its manufacturing, retail, distribution and online infrastructure for product development and commercialisation.

The commercialisation pipeline is central to the initiative. TechnoSport plans to use research and athlete-specific product development to bring new technologies into consumer products eventually. Its Tirupur manufacturing facilities are expected to provide the scale-up layer once products move beyond the research and prototyping stage.

For India’s sportswear industry, T-CREST creates a link between academic research, athlete requirements, manufacturing, and commercial products. TechnoSport has said it expects outcomes from the initiative over the next two to three years, making the partnership a longer-term investment in sports-specific product development rather than an immediate revenue initiative.