CEO & Co-Founder, CHK | Co-Founder, Metaman
Serial Founder & Consumer Brand Builder
Harsh Maskara is a Mumbai-based serial founder with a track record of building category-defining consumer brands for India’s Gen Z and young millennial market. Starting from a bootstrapped jewellery startup in his living room, he has scaled brands to market leadership, executed a $1 million acquisition, and attracted backing from some of India’s most prominent investors and celebrities. He is currently CEO and Co-Founder of CHK, a Made-in-India D2C lifestyle footwear brand backed by Accel and BlueStone.
Harsh Maskara’s Educational Background
Harsh holds an MBA from N. L. Dalmia Institute of Management Studies and Research (2019–2021). His grounding in finance shaped a rare ability to balance brand intuition with unit economics. Before founding his first company, he took on roles across investment banking – at A K Capital Services, MWH Holdings, and NYIC (New York International Capital) – as well as brief stints in e-commerce and influencer marketing. This unusual combination of financial rigour and digital commerce experience became the foundation for everything that followed.
The Beginning of the Entrepreneurial Journey
In late 2021, Maskara co-founded Drip Project with Rohit Golia, identifying a clear gap in the Indian market: hip-hop and streetwear culture was gaining traction among young consumers, yet quality jewellery in that aesthetic was either unaffordable or unavailable. The idea was to offer luxury-grade, handcrafted streetwear jewellery at accessible price points – with products starting at ₹1,000 and going up to ₹20,000.
The Drip Project
The brand was built bootstrapped, with the founders micromanaging every part of the business from their living room. Within six months, Drip Project had become the market leader in the hip-hop jewellery segment in India – a position it held by a significant margin. The brand grew at approximately 400% year-on-year and earned features on the covers of Filmfare, Hello Magazine, and Lifestyle Asia. Celebrities across Bollywood and the Indian music industry were seen wearing the brand, making it synonymous with luxury and individuality.
Drip Project’s product philosophy centred on the concept of “inner shine” – the idea that jewellery should be a vehicle for personal expression, accessible to anyone, not just the elite. The brand used brass as its base metal, plated with white gold, achieving a quality-to-price ratio that set it apart from mass-market alternatives.
Metaman
In January 2023, Metaman – a D2C men’s jewellery brand – acquired Drip Project for $1 million (approximately ₹8 crore), with Mr.Maskara joining as Co-Founder and CEO. The acquisition marked a significant validation of what he and Golia had built from scratch in under a year.
Metaman itself was founded by Anil Shetty in 2022 with an exceptional investor base: Nikhil Kamath (Zerodha), Suniel Shetty, Prashanth Prakash (Accel Partners), Ashish Hemrajani (BookMyShow), Shashank Kumar and Harshil Mathur (Razorpay), Gaurav Singh Kushwaha (BlueStone), Robin Uthappa, Vivek Gupta and Abhay Hanjura (Licious), Ankit Nagori (Curefit), and Sujeet Kumar (Udaan), among others.
The Expansion of Metaman
Under Maskara’s leadership, Metaman expanded beyond jewellery into apparel and, by mid-2024, fragrance. In August 2024, cricketer KL Rahul invested in the brand and was appointed its ambassador – a move Harsh described as a natural fit given Rahul’s personal affinity for premium perfumes and his longstanding connection with the Metaman and Drip Project journey. The startup also opened a physical retail store in Mumbai, signalling a shift toward omnichannel distribution.
CHK
His most recent venture is CHK (gochk.com), a D2C lifestyle sneaker brand targeting India’s style-conscious Gen Z and millennial consumers. CHK designs its footwear in Bengaluru and manufactures entirely in Tamil Nadu, operating a vertically integrated “Concept to Creation” model that gives the brand control over quality, turnaround time, and cost structure.
The brand fills a white space between global giants like Nike and Adidas (typically priced above ₹10,000) and budget-tier local players. CHK offers fashion-centric sneakers priced between ₹4,000 and ₹8,000 – stylish, high-quality, and designed for work, travel, and social settings. Its debut collection launched 35 styles across four distinct lines.
The Numbers
In January 2025, CHK raised $2.5 million in seed funding in a round led by Accel, with participation from BlueStone Jewellery and Lifestyle Limited, which had previously made a pre-seed investment of approximately ₹12 crore. As CEO and Co-Founder, Maskara brings his consumer brand-building and e-commerce expertise to a new category – one he has identified as the next major opportunity in India’s booming fashion market.
Across his ventures, Maskara has built relationships with some of India’s most prominent founders, operators, and celebrities. His investors and backers include Nikhil Kamath (Zerodha), Prashanth Prakash (Accel Partners), Ashish Hemrajani (BookMyShow), Shashank Kumar (Razorpay), Gaurav Singh Kushwaha (BlueStone), Suniel Shetty, KL Rahul, and Ankit Nagori (Curefit), among others. Accel and BlueStone have both backed CHK directly.
Maskara’s Playbook
Maskara’s playbook is consistent across categories: identify an underserved cultural niche in India’s Gen Z market, build a brand with strong aesthetic identity and accessible pricing, grow aggressively through digital-first channels and celebrity association, and position for scale or strategic acquisition. He has executed this in jewellery twice – with Drip Project and Metaman – and is now applying the same lens to footwear with CHK. His background in finance gives him a disciplined approach to margins and capital deployment, while his instinct for culture gives the brands he builds a genuine resonance with their audience.
Digital Footprints –
Website: https://gochk.co/password
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gochkofficial/
