Shark Tank India has returned with its second instalment on Sony Entertainment Television and Sony LIV. Shark Tank India Season 2 episode 26 titled “Bharat Badal Raha Hai”, premiered on February 6, 2023 during the 10-11PM IST time slot. Payel Seth is the show’s creative director, and 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 26 Recap Contains Spoilers-
‘Gavin Paris’, a streetwear fashion brand targeting the younger audience of the nation enters to make the first pitch. Founders Kishore Jairamka and Ashutosh Roy present their line of trendy, gender-neutral clothing with oversized t-shirts and comfortable apparel as their major breadwinners. The team hopes to raise a funding of Rs. 50 lakhs for 5% equity.
Once the products are handed to the Sharks, the first praises to be sung are about the apparel’s quality. With 100% premium cotton fabric being used to prepare t-shirts ranging around prices starting from Rs. 599, the brand’s entrepreneurs take pride on their control over the quality as all designs are fulfilled at their establishment in Kolkata. Having hired interns from the fashion industry, they stay up-to-date with the rising trends in the market.
The lifetime sales of the company stand at Rs. 1.4 crores in the past 7 months, with them being completed through their website only. Gross margin is recorded at 60%, while the profit is 18%. Saving around Rs. 200 per t-shirt during the production procedure, the brand’s numbers look great, but a new issue arises when the Sharks dig deeper to find out the equity split between the co-founders.
Many questions are left unanswered, and this tires out the Sharks who think the team to have ventured into the business scene without any proper preparations. The equity between the two founders hasn’t been consolidated either, and while Ashutosh does most of the talking, revealing further that his digital marketing strategies have made the brand a profitable endeavour, his future stake in the company will be as low as 10%. Working on the mere basis of a commission, Ashutosh’s contribution to the business is barely getting the due it deserves, and this makes the Sharks wary of Kishore’s intentions.
The lack of answers and clarity puts Anupam off as it all goes against his set of morals, and he moves out of the deal instantly, but stays back to guide Ashutosh. The future equity split between Kishore and Ashutosh of 90% and 10% respectively is evidently unfair and the Sharks can’t stand the former’s reply on the matter. Since Kishore isn’t able to grasp the importance of the company’s co-founder, it pushes away the remaining Sharks as well.
Amit and Aman rather offer Ashutosh with a platform and their support to start his own business instead where his worth would be respected. Vineeta is the last Shark standing, and she offers them a deal on the condition that Ashutosh will be accorded with 40% equity, and as the Sharks foresaw it, Kishore turns the offer down.
The second pitch is brought on by Ankit Aggarwal for ‘Unstop’, a completely bootstrapped venture that has now built out an online platform that enables companies to discover, engage, assess and hire the right candidates across the nation. With over 1 crore graduates struggling to find employment opportunities, ‘Unstop’ aids them in the hiring process through its Indian Idol-like assessment criteria. Holding on to registrations of 40 lakh students, and more than 200 companies being engaged with them, the platform envisions to grant appropriate opportunities to deserving talent, by looking beyond one’s resume.
For this to head towards even grander achievements, the founder presents his ask for Rs. 1 crore against 1% equity. Starting out in 2017 as ‘Dare2Compete’, which was later rebranded to the present name, the platform was a mere blog initially, but has now expanded to take form as a technology platform. The ultimate goal of the founder is to reach out to as many candidates as possible and help them get recruited.
Mentioning how SUGAR, CarDekho and boAt are already in contact with the platform for college tie-ups, the entrepreneur hopes for all Sharks to join the deal. When asked as to how the platform differentiates itself from the competitions in this domain, Ankit Aggarwal mentions that theirs is the only full stack platform that handles branding, sourcing and assessment all together. Estimating the new year’s projected sales around the range of Rs. 30-35 crores, he reveals the gross margin as 90% and EBITDA of the brand as 30%.
Amit plans to write off a solo cheque to the founder by presenting him an offer of Rs. 5 crores for 10% equity, but since Aggarwal wants to hear the other offers as well before sealing the deal, he goes back on his words for the time being. Aman and Namita come together as a team for the next offer. Anupam’s solo deal follows suit, who then surprisingly joins hands with Amit. This ultimately opens the room up for a four Shark deal, and the final offer made by the team of Aman, Namita, Anupam and Amit is for Rs. 2 crores against 4% equity, which is agreed upon and the case is closed.
The final pitch is a colourful ordeal as ‘Blue Tea’ stays true to its name and serves the Sharks cups filled with a blue herbal concoction. Sunil Chandra Saha and Nitesh Singh present the “first blue tea brand” and look forward to an investment of Rs. 75 lakhs for 1% equity.
Prepared from flower extracts, the tea is able to impress Aman on the up side, and push Vineeta to praise the packaging, but Anupam awaits his turn to call out the founders for making a false claim. He points out their brand’s self-claimed USP as the “first blue the brand”, and counters this with his prior experience of having enjoyed the same beverage on the U.S. soil. The miscommunication from the founders’ end sets him off, and as could’ve been expected, he doesn’t offer them a deal.
With 50 flavours in India and 35 in the U.S., the brand’s sales are mostly acquired from the American population, which is helping them earn monthly sales of Rs. 1.5 crores, and further their goals of projected sales estimated around Rs. 30 crores. Marketed as the number one herbal tea on Amazon, they’ve garnered about 8500 reviews, leading their products to earn a rating of 4.3/5 stars. Once again, numbers aren’t everything. The Sharks are perturbed by the exaggerated gimmicks played by Sunil in attempts to impress them all.
Amit even takes a step further to call them out as ‘topibaz’ for their deceptive portrayal of the brand. The team isn’t able to inspire any trust in the Sharks for themselves, but Aman is still invested in his thoughts and eventually deals out an offer because he can relate with how the founders balance each other out, a scene much familiar to him on personal grounds of his own brand as well. The final deal is sealed at Rs. 50 lakhs for 3% equity and Rs. 25 lakhs debts at 12% interest with Aman on-board.
Shark Tank India Season 2 Episode 26: Final Thoughts
The first pitch with ‘Gavin Paris’ saw the Sharks coming together as a unit bent to guide a naive entrepreneur to take a stand for his rights. While this may have led to some clashes between the founders post the pitch, it was a sight for sore eyes to see the Sharks united as a guiding force helping out a young entrepreneur in need.
Moreover, it was shocking to see Anupam pair up with Amit voluntarily for the ‘unstop’ pitch despite their usual alterations (which proceeded to heat up the latest episode as well). It was refreshing to see them meet halfway to support a business like this for once.
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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