Shark Tank India: Sharks of Season 1 invest in 27 out of 65 committed deals

More than a year after the completion of Shark Tank India Season 1, seven sharks have honoured 27 out of their 65 investment commitments.

PrivateCircle Research, a private market intelligence firm, has analysed the Ministry of Corporate Affairs filings made by the Shark Tank companies to arrive at these findings. The data is updated as of July 12, 2023. Ashneer Grover, Peyush Bansal, Anupam Mittal, Aman Gupta, Ghazal Alagh, Vineeta Singh, and Namita Thapar were the seven sharks of the show’s first season.

Among the seven, Thapar fulfilled the maximum percentage (59 per cent) of investment commitments. In Season 1, she committed to invest in 22 companies, out of which 13 companies have made investment filings till July 12, 2023. On the other hand, Mittal had the lowest investment percentage of 29 per cent. He invested in seven out of 24 committed deals.

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Sharks invested ₹17 crore

In terms of value, sharks committed to investing a total of ₹40 crore in 65 companies during the Season 1 telecast. Out of this, a total of ₹17 crore has been invested across 27 start-ups till July 12, 2023. Individually, Thapar invested the highest amount of ₹7 crore, whereas Alagh made the lowest investment of ₹40 lakhs. It should be noted that Ghazal’s participation in the show was limited to only a couple of episodes.

Interestingly, Thapar has invested around ₹7 crore in 13 start-ups till now, which is higher than her overall commitment of investing about ₹6 crore in 22 start-ups during the Shark Tank Season 1 telecast.

Sumanjan Kumar, lead financial analyst at PrivateCircle, said, “Our findings show that some deals committed on the show may have fallen through because of concerns in company due diligence. Also, some start-ups seem to have passed on the Shark Tank deal to raise funding at higher valuations from other investors.” Overall, 117 start-ups participated in Shark Tank Season 1, out of which 65 got deal commitments during the show. Lenskart raised a notional Re 1 on Shark Tank Season 1, so it is excluded from the count.

Also, two rejected companies (Agri Tourism and Jhaji Achaar) got investments from Sharks after the completion of the show. Agri Tourism received an investment of ₹5 lakh from Namita in April 2022, whereas Jhaji Achaar got ₹30 lakh in a joint investment from Thapar and Singh in September 2022.

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For Shark Tank India Season 2, which ended in March 2023, a total of 166 companies pitched on the show. Out of these 166 companies, 115 got a real commitment on the show, but only one of them has made investment filings till now. It is possible that the due diligence is pending for the Season 2 companies, and so we expect more start-ups to get committed funding from the Sharks in the coming months, the statement said.

Start-up valuations jump post Shark Tank

In response to India’s thriving start-up ecosystem, there has been a rise of fundraising avenues in the country, including shows like Shark Tank and tech platforms like PrivateCircle Markets and AngelList, among others.

The mere appearance on shows like Shark Tank seems to impact the valuation of participating start-ups positively. We found six start-ups who seemingly passed on the Shark Tank deal to raise funding at a higher valuation from other investors.

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These six companies are Grow Fitter, Insurance Samadhan, Raising Superstars, Get a Whey, Tweek Labs, and Joules Health. Raising Superstars got valued at ₹25 crore in the Shark Tank deal but got a valuation jump of 2x from other investors in less than six months after the show.

Similarly, 10 companies that did not get a deal from Sharks in Season 1 also managed to raise fresh funding at higher valuations than their original ask on the show. These companies include SweeDesi, KetoIndia, Experiential Etc, On2Cook, Woloo, Theka Coffee, Aliste Technologies, Good Good Piggy Bank, Anthyesti, and Mommy’s Kitchen.

Specifically, On2Cook was able to raise ₹17 crore at a valuation of ₹100 crore in less than a year after its appearance on Shark Tank. On the show, they asked for ₹1 crore in funding at a valuation of ₹ 33 crore.

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