Entertainment Television and Sony LIV. Shark Tank India Season 2 episode 13 premiered on January 18, 2023 with the title “Up And Coming Business Ideas” during the 10-11PM IST time slot. Payel Seth is the show’s creative director, while it’s been produced by Studio NEXT, with Ravikesh Vatsa as its writer.
The show is hosted by comedian Rahul Dua, and graced by six judges, better known as sharks – Anupam Mittal Founder-CEO of Shaadi.com – People Group; Aman Gupta, Co-Founder-CMO of boAt; Namita Thapar, Executive Director of Emcure Pharmaceuticals; Vineeta Singh, Co-Founder-CEO of SUGAR Cosmetics; Peyush Bansal, Founder-CEO of Lenskart.com and Amit Jain, Co-Founder-CEO of CarDekho Group and InsuranceDekho.com.
-Shark Tank India Season 2 Episode 13 Recap Contains Spoilers-
Young pioneers join the sharks for the first pitch of the day, with a twist. Instead of walking in first and introducing themselves verbally, the ‘Inside FPV’ (First Person View) team, founded by Arth Chowdhary, Oshi Kumari, and Deyvant Bhardwaj, exhibits India’s first-ever consumer-based, plug-and-fly FPV drone in an eye-catching demonstration. As their drone flies through various obstacles set up on the stage, the team gets closer to its destination by impressing the five sharks.
Making these drones more pocket-friendly with their website sales starting at only Rs. 2800, the businesses aims to expand into the market. In order to achieve this along with the sharks’ expertise and guidance, the trio presents a deal of Rs. 75 lakhs for 4% equity. The sharks are moved by their “enthusiastic” pitch and are further impressed by the fact that two out of them are recent graduates while Oshi is still a fourth year student at VIT Vellore.
The previously existing market of these drones was quite expensive due to them being imported from International spaces, however, that supply has been cut off by the government as well to push for the ‘Make in India’ criteria. Namita applauds Oshi for being a “woman in STEM”, a rare sight to behold in the nation.
Their sales split comprises of 40% of Plug and Fly FPV drones, while 60% is reserved for spare parts. B2B doesn’t bring them any sales, it’s all profitable in the B2C sector for them. Anupam then interrogates whether they’re shifting their approach to the device sector, to which the answer is no, as they’re more concerned with the manufacturing aspect of the drones. While at the moment all eyes are fixed at the hardware side, they soon want to pander out to create a balanced ecosystem of both software and hardware.
The major or the unique selling point of the project is the flight controller, aka the brain of the drone, and the team has worked hard to program the same. Anupam is out because he believes that this space is going to be very competitive soon. Peyush, too, thinks that the company is still at its early stage, but he sees their team to be in possession of a bet-able potential, and is willing to go ahead for a deal with Aman. The offer brought on is for Rs. 50 lakhs for 20% equity and Rs. 25 lakhs Debt at 0% interest. This is soon rivalled by Amit and Namita’s offer of Rs. 75 lakhs for 15% equity.
The team puts forward a counter offer, but this brings Peyush to matching with Amit and Namita’s offer, who further revise their stake to 12%. ‘Inside FPV’, however, wants all four of them to come forward together. The endless negotiations end at Rs. 75 lakhs for 15% equity, with all four – Peyush, Aman, Namita and Amit – joining them.
The second team of the day is ‘Angrakhaa’, whose founders Asana Riamei and Vishakha Bhaskkar elaborate upon the ‘fat tax’, referring to the practice of plus-sized customers buying clothing merchandise at exorbitant rates. Dealing via their website, the two founders hope to inculcate values of size inclusivity in their business ethic by normalising various sizes instead of making customers feel like outcasts. Without compromising on the fashionable and trendy elements, they’ve priced all sizes at the same level without creating discrepancy.
Starting in 2020, one of their specialisation is also customisation, but that only makes up for 27% customer requests, rest all is designed by their vision. Branching out to both men and women wear, as the name of the brand suggests, their goal is to retain a sense of ‘Indianness’ in their designs, even when they make it big in the global market. To keep heading towards their aimed success, they ask the sharks for an investment of Rs. 40 lakhs for 5% equity.
Coming to the sharks, Namita is the first one to mention how she has been fat-shamed previously as well, but she’s also interested in finding out why they’ve not maintained an ‘only plus size’ category. To which, Vishakha openly details out that through their vision that they don’t want to label any particular category of customers as ‘outcasts’, which is why they never promote themselves as “a plus size brand” because that tagline itself can be a cause for embarrassment for many people.
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Their sales have grown exponentially from the financial 2019-2020, when they recorded sales of Rs. 14 lakhs, whereas during their last financial year, they’ve garnered about Rs. 1.16 crores, which leaves the sharks awestruck. Asana’s technical expertise when meshed with Vishakha’s knack for the social media, finally tapped into the marketing aspect of the business only in the last few years, which led to their eventual growth. Thereafter, they present further details of the numbers of their business and monthly sales, which brings the sharks closer to their respective final decisions.
Peyush talks about how they should rethink about whether they need to raise more funds or not; Namita and Aman also move out, as the latter points out their brand strategy to be “confusing”. Anupam, then, points out how hard it is to go further with this business, and the lack of a “unique selling proposition” pushes him away too.
Amit, on the other hand, looks on the bright side and offers them a deal, while promising his expertise in digital marketing to aid their sales. He presents Rs. 40 lakhs for 20% equity from his end, but is countered for Rs. 40 lakhs for 15% equity by the team. This leads him to mentioning how he will be putting in his valued work and it will require a lot of efforts on his side since he will help them convert their business into an investible entity, since at the moment it puts on a more personalised front, and the idea is also backed by Peyush. The girls eventually agree to the proposition and shake on it.
‘Diabexy’ closes the pitching scene for the day as co-founders Lokendra and Nishu Tomar walk out with their vision of eradicating diabetes from India. Introducing the basics early on, they open up the conversation around our dietary habits and how the major percentage of Indian food consumption revolves around grains, which contain a high glycemic index, thus adding on to the sugar conversion in our bodies. With their line of food products like cookies, flour and more, the founders have brought in alternatives with lesser glycemic index to fall back on.
Having started their run in 2016, their company has now garnered more than 3.5 lakhs customers. And to promote their goal to a higher level, they ask the sharks for a deal of Rs. 1.5 crores for 1% equity, which leaves them all wide-eyed and astounded.
As the two spokespersons of the brand divulge the breakdown of their sales and other data, the shark find out they’ve been able to take away for a salary of Rs. 1 crore (collectively) for themselves, in addition to making a profit of Rs. 1.5 crores, with nearly 70% repeat customers in line for their items.
Breakdown of sales reveals that initially both line-ups of their company – keto and ‘diabexy’ products – balanced out each other by bringing in 50-50% sales. However, as the keto diet started fading away, the balance started tipping over to the latter side with ‘diabexy’ bringing in 70% of their total sales. They claim to have been using oligo fructose i.e. a fibre to sweeten their cookies and other items.
Currently having a team size of 40 employees other than themselves, the vision of the company is completely built from the ground up on the shoulders of the two founders present on stage. On being asked by Anupam as to what they hope to achieve with their business in the next five years, Mr. Lokendra answers that they will work on their increasing turnover scale, but the thought is quickly countered by another claim made by Anupam which refers to their price of ‘Diabexy’ flour – Rs. 500 per kg – as extremely expensive and out of reach for the average customer.
Competition becomes another concerning factor that pulls Anupam out of the deal, but the remaining four sharks come together for a deal of Rs. 1.5 crores for 20% equity. Lokendra, however, can’t see himself budging with the stakes calculated initially and hands out his self-written books to the sharks, acquiring enough time for the company’s marketing and publicity. While the deal doesn’t go ahead, the founders are satisfied with announcing their company’s model and its name to the people watching at home.
Shark Tank India Season 2 Episode 13 Review
The sharks are clearly led by their expertise of creating a specific category in business, and that’s what they forwarded in their guidance to ‘Angrakhaa’ as well. However, I personally still believe their image of the brand to be a more inclusive picture, just as they’d stated it to be. From a business point of view, it may be necessary to build a category, but that again relies on singling out something. Morally speaking, the moment you do that, one starts envisioning this ‘category’, so to say, as something out of the ordinary or the usual seamless stream of availability and accessibility.
There are enough ‘plus size’ brands in the market already, but what ‘Angrakhaa’ gets straight is the fact that this “outcast” delineation of a clothing line is what has been driving away the customers for such a long time. Essentially, this failure has to be attributed to the societal pressures and the flawed sense of “normality” that we as a community propagate among each other. The only way to normalise this line of clothing is through its assimilation with the rest.
While businesses count on finding that “one” specific thing that sets them apart for the rest to monetise their goals, ‘Angrakhaa’s approach is a welcoming idea, which in itself is unique, as it is, because their concept seeks to normalise the perception around clothes itself instead of pointing fingers at a specificity. On the other hand, Lokendra ji, too, stuck close to his original plans, and as fans have recently coined the show’s name to be a “Bargaining tank”, he didn’t give in to that thought process either, rather took it as an opportunity to present a positive image of their business, and granted himself a shining marketing strategy in disguise.
Shark Tank India Season 2 episodes will be broadcasted on Sony Entertainment Television and live-streamed on SonyLIV from Monday to Friday at 10 PM IST.
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