Young LA Owner: Gurmer and Robby Chopra, the Brothers Behind the Brand

Gurmer Chopra and Robby Chopra two brothers who immigrated from India and grew up working in their father's Los Angeles business  are the Young LA Owner. They founded the company together in 2014, built it without outside investment, and remain actively involved in running it today.

Who the Young LA Owner Actually Is And the Name Confusion Worth Clearing Up

If you've dug around and seen three names connected to YoungLA's ownership Gurmer, Robby, and Dashmeet that's not three different people. It's two.Dashmeet Chopra and Robby Chopra are the same person. 

Dashmeet is his legal name. Robby is what he goes by publicly, in interviews, and across most media coverage. Some sources use one, some use the other, and very few bother to clarify the connection. That single inconsistency is responsible for most of the confusion around who actually owns and runs the company.

So to be direct: YoungLA has two owners. Gurmer Chopra and Robby (Dashmeet) Chopra. Brothers. Co-founders. Both still involved.

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Background Where the Chopra Brothers Came From

Family Roots and Early Business Exposure

The brothers were born in India and moved to the United States with their family in 2002, spending their first years in New Jersey before relocating to California. Their father didn't take a conventional career path after immigrating he built a wholesale souvenir business and managed gift shops across Los Angeles.

Both brothers worked in that business from a young age. Gurmer has mentioned being around twelve when he first started helping his father manage operations. That kind of early exposure real transactions, real customers, real margins shapes how you think about business. It's a different education than a classroom provides.

Education and the Jobs They Left Behind

Gurmer studied at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Robby graduated from California State University, Northridge. Both completed degrees, both took corporate jobs afterward and neither stayed long.

Gurmer's story is well documented. He joined a Big Four accounting firm straight out of university. Four months in, he quit. 

By his own account in interviews, he found the work genuinely disconnected from anything he cared about. He'd also started studying for his CPA exam and described opening the prep book, reading the first page, and knowing immediately he couldn't build a life around it.

That's the moment he went all-in on the business he'd been building on the side with Robby.

Robby's pre-YoungLA background is less detailed in public reporting. What is confirmed is that both brothers were running their online reselling operation as a side project before either committed to it full time.

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How YoungLA Started — The Real Origin Story

Reselling on eBay Before There Was a Brand

YoungLA didn't begin as a fitness brand. It began as two brothers sourcing cheap goods in Downtown Los Angeles T-shirts, jeans, Converse, Vans, graphic tees and reselling them on eBay. They expanded to Amazon. Neither platform was glamorous. They were just learning what sold and what didn't.

What they kept noticing was that men's fitness apparel consistently moved well. Demand was real. And the affordable end of that market was thin on quality options.

The Gap They Were Filling

Brands like Lululemon and Fabletics were growing fast, but both were clearly aimed at women. Men's gym wear at accessible price points was either generic and cheap-looking or expensive performance gear that most guys weren't buying casually. There was no brand sitting comfortably in between stylish enough to wear outside the gym, priced for a regular person, designed with a gym-going man specifically in mind.

The brothers decided to build that brand themselves. Their first real product push was bodybuilding shorts on Amazon.

Where the Name YoungLA Came From

The name wasn't the result of any formal branding process. It came from a DJ on their local California radio station who went by "Young California." They named their Shopify store YoungLA.com after that reference and kept it. Practical, informal, and as accidental as most good brand names tend to be.

How the Chopra Brothers Built the Business

Bootstrapped From Day One No Outside Investors

This is genuinely unusual for a company that grew to the size YoungLA has reached. The Chopra brothers took no venture capital, no angel investment, and no outside loans. They funded early operations through personal savings and reinvested every dollar of profit back into the business.

The trade-off was slower early growth. The benefit was complete control over product decisions, brand direction, pricing, and company culture. For a brand where the aesthetic and community identity are central to what it actually sells, that control probably mattered more than speed.

Revenue Milestones Confirmed Figures Only

YoungLA is a private company. It doesn't publish financial reports. 

But several figures have been confirmed through credible reporting and are worth distinguishing from the speculation that tends to surround private brands:

• 2017: First $1 million in revenue

• 2020: Revenue exceeded $6 million

• 2023: Crossed $100 million in annual sales

• 2024: Over $176 million in revenue, per CNBC citing documents it reviewed

Any net worth figures or valuations you see attached to the Chopra brothers' names are not from disclosed sources. The company has never published a valuation. Those numbers are estimates, and should be read as such.

Team Growth and Physical Operations

The business started with the two brothers and one additional employee. In 2015 they moved into their first warehouse 1,000 square feet. By 2020 that had grown to 10,000 square feet. The company now employs more than 150 people and operates out of Chatsworth, California, in the northwestern San Fernando Valley.

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What Each Brother Does at YoungLA

Here's where publicly available information has real limits, and it's better to say that plainly than to guess.

Gurmer is the more public-facing of the two. He appears in most media interviews, gives most on-record quotes, and has been the primary spokesperson across recent press coverage including the 2025 CNBC feature. Robby was more visible in earlier interviews particularly around 2020 but has had a lower public profile in recent years.

What neither brother has disclosed publicly is the formal ownership structure between them. Whether equity is split equally, whether their operational roles are divided by function, or how major decisions get made none of that is on record. That's completely normal for a private company. It just means it shouldn't be assumed.

How YoungLA Grew Its Audience

Influencer Marketing as the Core Strategy

YoungLA didn't grow through traditional paid advertising. The brand built its audience primarily through fitness influencers people on Instagram and YouTube with dedicated gym-focused communities who wore the clothes and promoted them organically to their audiences.

Their first major influencer contract was signed in 2019. The network has since expanded to over 125 active partners. A custom discount code system ties each partner's content directly to trackable sales, making the affiliate relationships performance-based rather than purely promotional.

One thing worth clarifying: some coverage of YoungLA references very large "Earned Media Value" numbers figures in the hundreds of millions. EMV is a marketing metric that calculates the estimated advertising equivalent of organic content exposure. It is not revenue. 

The two are frequently presented together in ways that blur the distinction. Revenue is money the company earns from product sales. EMV is a calculated estimate of content reach. They are measuring different things entirely.

Athletes, Celebrity Partners, and Drop Culture

The brand has signed partnerships with UFC fighters Sean O'Malley and Jon Jones, heavyweight boxing champion Tyson Fury, and rapper YG the first ambassador YoungLA has brought in from the music industry. These partnerships reflect a deliberate push to move the brand beyond gym culture and into broader lifestyle territory.

YoungLA also uses drop culture releasing limited product batches at scheduled intervals rather than maintaining static inventory. This creates repeat engagement from existing customers without requiring permanent stock commitments.

Expanding Into Women's Apparel

The original YoungLA line was men's only. The women's line, YoungLA For Her, came later and has become a substantial part of the business. By 2024, female content creators were among the top performers in the brand's affiliate network, both by volume and by engagement metrics.

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The First Physical Store 2025

YoungLA operated as a purely online brand for most of its existence. In early 2025, the company opened its first physical retail location at the Westfield Topanga shopping center in Los Angeles a deliberate choice, given the mall's proximity to the Chatsworth headquarters.

The founders described this as the start of a selective retail approach rather than broad expansion. Additional U.S. locations and international markets are reportedly being evaluated, but no confirmed announcements have been made beyond the Topanga store.

What Remains Undisclosed

A few things are genuinely unknown and worth stating clearly, because several sources present them as settled facts:

The exact ownership split between Gurmer and Robby has never been made public. Whether any outside financing has occurred since the company's early bootstrapped years is not confirmed. Net worth estimates for either brother are speculative no verified figures exist because none have been disclosed.

That's not unusual. Most private company founders don't publish their equity arrangements or personal wealth. It just means readers should treat any specific figures they encounter on those topics with appropriate skepticism.

Conclusion

YoungLA is owned by brothers Gurmer and Robby (Dashmeet) Chopra. They started it in 2014 with no outside funding, scaled it past $176 million in annual revenue by 2024, and remain the company's owners and operators today.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who owns YoungLA? 

YoungLA is owned by brothers Gurmer Chopra and Robby Chopra, also known as Dashmeet Chopra. They co-founded the brand in 2014. No outside investors have been publicly reported, and both brothers remain involved in running the company.

Is Robby Chopra the same person as Dashmeet Chopra? 

Yes. Dashmeet is Robby Chopra's legal first name. He uses Robby publicly. Different sources use both names without explanation, which is the main source of confusion around YoungLA's ownership.

Did YoungLA take any outside investment? 

No outside investment has been reported. The Chopra brothers have consistently described bootstrapping the company using personal savings and reinvested profits. No venture capital or angel funding is on the public record.

How much revenue does YoungLA make? 

CNBC reported 2024 revenue exceeding $176 million, citing reviewed documents. The $100 million milestone was crossed in 2023. No official figures are published YoungLA is a private company.

Where is YoungLA based? 

YoungLA's headquarters are in Chatsworth, California. Their first physical retail store opened at Westfield Topanga in Los Angeles in early 2025.