MUMBAI: One of the most unusual success stories in Indian television has been Shark Tank India. Shark Tank India is a business reality television program that is shown on Sony Entertainment Television in India. The program is an Indian franchise from the United States. It depicts business owners giving pitches to a group of sharks or investors, who determine whether to fund their enterprise.

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Shark Tank India has had its share of controversies since its launch in 2020. Some said the show was scripted while some founders accused the Sharks of not giving them their promised funds and former Shark Ashneer Grover took digs at the other Sharks.

Now, Anupam Mittal has cleared the air in his lengthy LinkedIN post addressing all these issues and more.

His post read, “First it was ‘Sharks do not invest their own money’, then ‘Oh, the show is scripted’ & then ‘Sharks only fund profitable cos’. In every case, it’s not hard to spot a pre-determined, ill-intentioned narrative with no data or sources to back said claims. It is no surprise, then, that another flimsy controversy is doing the rounds. Again, no data, no real names. Just finger-pointing and in one case, an angry & irrelevant commentator thrown in for added masala”

His post further read, “1)) Most of the businesses on the Tank are very early stage. Many are proprietorships, which first need to be registered as Companies. The founders have never seen an SHA, nor do they have readily available numbers. Our teams hand-hold them through many of these issues. As a result, deal completion can take 3 to 6 months depending on the readiness of the Company and the founders.

2) Sometimes deals don’t go through because the founder changes their mind, the company fails legal, financial and/or tax diligence OR the founders do not meet the obligations agreed to while accepting a ‘conditional deal’. For better or for worse, this is just the nature of deal-making.

3) Some founders like to renegotiate or deal-shop which can also delay completion. Personally, I don’t encourage this but am always open to finding win-win structures as many of my investee cos will attest to.

At a broader level, With ~200,000 entries, 388 pitches, (~50% women) & ~200 offers worth ~150 crores, Shark Tank has been a powerful force for democratizing Indian entrepreneurship.

So, if you are going to critique it, do it with data & specificity as opposed to loose anecdotes & ‘expert’ opinions that make for clickbait-y headlines but are either incomplete or far from the truth.

To founders who might have made such claims (questionable since we have no real names), here is an open invitation – please step forward. In the exceptional case that you have been wronged, let’s fix that. If you are just pissed off because you couldn’t extract money without meeting your obligations, well, lesson well learned.

What are your thoughts on Anupam Mittal’s post?

Tell us in the comments below.

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Credit-indianexpress