The Sarabhai family was a prominent Indian family active in several fields. The patriarch, Ambalal Sarabhai, was a leading industrialist. While he created significant wealth, his children interested themselves in a wide variety of other endeavours, and the family is better known for those activities, rather than for industrial enterprise, which is now all but defunct.

Bania is a mercantile caste mainly from the Indian states of Gujarat and Rajasthan, with strong diasporic communities in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Maharashtra and other northern states. Traditionally, the main occupations of the community are merchants, bankers, money-lenders, and owners of commercial enterprises.