THE IKVITI IDEA
A community where everyone holds a share in their own future.
What the name means, why a café of all places, and what we hope you leave with.
ikviti is a play of letters. ik is one in Punjabi — oneness, the starting point. viti completes equity — the social kind, and the financial kind: a share in something.
Put together: a community where everyone holds a share in their own future.
Why a café, of all places
Cafés have become our third space — where people work, study, socialize, or simply sit with themselves. We know this personally: before ikviti existed, a neighborhood coffee shop was where our own life together got planned, argued over, and celebrated. That makes cafés, we think, exactly the right place for public life to restart in small doses. Great coffee and honest, fresh food bring people in. What happens next is the experiment.
The founders
Jarnail
CLIMATE, SINCE 2008
I've worked on climate since 2008 — solar energy, energy access, regenerative agriculture — across the private sector, nonprofits, and philanthropy. My hypothesis: what if the climate crisis could leave researchers' minds and become ordinary public conversation? When a heat wave hits Delhi, why do we only turn up the air conditioning? Why don't we see the people on the road struggling through the same heat? That's where the climate crisis meets social inequity — each deepening the other. A café is a very good place to start noticing.
Surleen
THE PALATE OF THE HOUSE
A PhD in Reproductive Biology and Chief Embryologist at a world-class IVF centre in India, Surleen brings a scientist's exactness to everything ikviti pours. In any city, in any country, she will find the quiet corner with the great coffee — she always has, and she does not settle for second best. At ikviti she is the standard everything must meet: the house's key taster since the first home-roasting days, and famously the toughest customer to please. When Jarnail roasted, he would cup the coffees and prepare a special just for her. Only when she approved did a roast move forward. It still works that way.
What we hope you leave with
Everyone leaves with good coffee and food — that part is guaranteed. Beyond it, we work a ladder:
A nudge
A post-it, a poster, a question on the café wall.
A conversation
With another guest, about something of national or planetary relevance.
Participation
A circle, an exhibition, a festival.
We measure ourselves by whether people climb it voluntarily. No sermons with your cappuccino.
An idea in motion
ikviti is an idea always in motion, not a brand with set boundaries. It began inside one housing society, moved to an open market, travels to campuses as pop-ups — and it will keep going where community gathers. The coffee, the bread, and the food follow the idea, not the other way around.
We're honest about the stage we're in: ikviti must sustain itself as a business first, so the idea can be patient. Which brings us to the door below.
The idea currently tastes like this.
Small-batch coffee and 48-hour sourdough, delivered across Delhi-NCR.
SHOP IKVITI