Calico Museum of Textiles - India

What Calico Museum of Textiles - India does

The Calico Museum of Textiles, located in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India, is operated by the Sarabhai Foundation — a charitable trust registered in India in 1959 (Charity Trust Registration No. E-937). It functions as a heritage and cultural institution that preserves and displays an exceptional collection of Indian textiles spanning several centuries, recognized as one of the finest textile museums globally. The museum offers guided tours to visitors, operating Tuesday through Sunday with specific morning and afternoon sessions, and is closed on Mondays and public holidays. Its customer base consists primarily of museum visitors, textile enthusiasts, collectors, researchers, and tourists interested in Indian textile heritage, with a secondary segment of online shoppers purchasing textile merchandise, books, and cultural products.

The museum's commercial product surface comprises two core offerings: physical guided museum tours (free or admission-based, though pricing is not publicly disclosed) and an e-commerce storefront at calicomuseum.org/shop selling textile-related products and books. The shop operates with a minimal technology stack — a PayUMoney payment gateway for card transactions encrypted via Industrial Strength Cipher, and Indian Speed Post for fulfillment (72-hour domestic delivery, 15-18 day international). The underlying platform architecture is a simple content/e-commerce website with no app presence, no disclosed APIs, and no third-party platform integrations beyond payment and shipping logistics.

As a nonprofit organization, the museum has no disclosed revenue figures, no funding rounds, no institutional investors, and no commercial subsidiaries. The business model relies on the Sarabhai Foundation's trust structure for governance and funding, supplemented by any nominal commercial activity from admissions and merchandise sales. With only 5 employees, operations are lean and consistent with a charitable heritage-preservation mandate rather than a commercially-scaled enterprise.

Name

Calico Museum of Textiles - India

Legal name

Sarabhai Foundation

Website

https://calicomuseum.org

Company type

Private

Founded year

1959

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

The Calico Museum of Textiles is a nonprofit heritage institution in Ahmedabad, India, operated by the Sarabhai Foundation since 1959, offering guided tours of historic Indian textile collections and a small e-commerce shop for textile merchandise and books.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Textile Museum and Cultural Heritage Services

NAICS

Museums (71211), Sewing, Needlework, and Piece Goods Retailers (459130)

SIC

Retail-Apparel & Accessory Stores (5600)

akta.pro primary industry

Vintage & Heirloom Textile/Garment Conservation (HSAJAGAH)

akta.pro secondary industry

General Fabric & Textile Stores (CRALADAA)

Keywords

• Textile museum exhibits
• Heritage textile tours
• Museum gift shop
• Cultural heritage preservation
• Indian textile arts

Headquarters

HQ city

Ahmedabad

HQ country

India

HQ region

Asia

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Operations, Personnel, Infrastructure, Supply Chain, Others

Distribution channels1 record

Marketing channels1 record

Core offering

The Calico Museum of Textiles operates as a cultural heritage museum offering guided tours of its historic Indian textile collection to visitors on scheduled days (Tuesday to Sunday, 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. and 2:45 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.). It also runs an online e-commerce shop (calicomuseum.org/shop) selling textile-related products, books, and museum merchandise, with shipping handled domestically and internationally via Indian Speed Post.

Product overview

Calico Museum of Textiles operates as a museum offering guided tours of its textile collection and an e-commerce shop for textile-related merchandise. The museum is open Tuesday to Sunday, closed Mondays and public holidays. The shop operates separately as an online retail platform, with customer support available via telephone (+91 79 2286 8172) and email ([email protected]) during operating hours.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Museum Tours Scheduled guided tours of the Calico Museum of Textiles collection, open to individual visitors Tuesday to Sunday from 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. and 2:45 p.m. to 5:30 p.m., closed on Mondays and public holidays. The tours provide access to historic Indian textile artifacts for visitors, textile enthusiasts, researchers, and tourists.
• Museum Shop Online retail store operated by the museum selling textile-related products, books, and cultural merchandise to shoppers. Orders are shipped via Indian Speed Post, with domestic delivery within 72 hours and international delivery within 15-18 days. Payment processing is handled through the PayUMoney gateway.

Segments2 records

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration2 records

Recent moves3 records

Expansion highlights3 records

Broad incumbents

• The Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met): The Met's Costume Institute and textile holdings make it a global reference point for textile collections. Comparable as a major museum with significant textile assets, a global brand, and a major retail operation, though its scope extends well beyond textiles.
• Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A): London's V&A houses one of the world's premier textile and fashion collections alongside its broader decorative arts scope. It is comparable as a globally recognized institution with deep textile holdings and a museum shop, though it operates at vastly greater scale and breadth than the Calico Museum.

Regional players

• Indian Museum, Kolkata: India's oldest and largest multipurpose museum, with significant textile and anthropological collections. Comparable as a major Indian heritage institution with textile assets, but operating at much broader scope.
• National Museum, New Delhi: India's flagship national museum, housing significant textile and decorative arts galleries. Comparable as a major Indian heritage museum with textile holdings, though it spans archaeology, art, and anthropology rather than focusing on textiles.
• Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (CSMVS): A leading heritage museum in Mumbai with decorative arts and textile collections. Comparable as a major Indian museum with textile and craft holdings, though broader in scope than the Calico Museum's textile focus.
• Museum of Art & Photography (MAP): A modern Indian art and cultural heritage museum in Bangalore with a strong digital-first strategy. Comparable as an Indian cultural institution with heritage collections and active e-commerce/retail, and a useful peer for benchmarking digital audience development.

Direct peers

• National Crafts Museum (Delhi): India's leading government-run museum dedicated to handicrafts and traditional textiles, located in Delhi. Directly comparable as an Indian institution focused on textile and craft heritage, on-site artisan engagement, and craft retail.
• Anokhi Museum of Hand Printing: A dedicated textile-arts museum in Jaipur, India, focused on hand-block printing heritage. It is the closest direct Indian peer to the Calico Museum of Textiles, sharing the niche of textile heritage preservation, craft education, and on-site retail of textile merchandise.
• George Washington University Museum and The Textile Museum: Washington, D.C.-based dedicated textile museum with a global collection of historic and ethnographic textiles. It is one of the few institutions worldwide whose core mission—textile collection, research, and exhibition—directly mirrors the Calico Museum's.

Others

• Sabarmati Ashram (Gandhi Ashram): Located in Ahmedabad, this heritage site shares the Calico Museum's geographic and cultural-tourism ecosystem. It is comparable as a fellow Ahmedabad-based heritage destination rather than a direct textile peer, useful for benchmarking local heritage visitor flows.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat3 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights5 records

Customer concentration

• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/calico-museum-of-textiles---india

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

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M&A

Investments

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