The five ‘sharks’ had very different reactions to a pitch from two entrepreneurs representing their haircare brand Arata on Shark Tank India season 3. The brand counted actor Taapsee Pannu as an ambassador, and had already been valued at over Rs 70 crore prior to being featured on the popular reality show. Straight away, Vineeta Singh asked the two entrepreneurs, both of whom were incidentally named Dhruv, if they’d come on the show purely for publicity purposes.
The two Dhruvs assured the sharks that this wasn’t the case, and asked for Rs 1 crore in funding in exchange of 1.5% equity. After an intense round of questioning, during which Vineeta inquired in detail about the company’s claims and the ingredients that they use in their products, Anupam Mittal asked about their history. Deepinder Goyal praised the company for ‘killing it’ on his delivery platform Blinkit, but dropped out of the deal because it would violate Zomato policy to invest in their brand.
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Aman Gupta admired the two entrepreneurs, but admitted that he was too scared to invest in their brand. “Mujhe dar lag raha hai,” he said, asking why they didn’t double down on products for curly hair, considering that’s what their initial USP was. The entrepreneurs replied, “Our biggest learnings are that we might have over-indexed our resources in the curl segment. We couldn’t grow to the level that we wanted to. We over-indexed on the website as well.” Vineeta said that she disagrees with them, and that most women that she has spoken to about Arata praise their products for curly hair. “Because you raised so much capital, you moved away from your USP,” she said.
The entrepreneurs replied, “We never thought of this as a curl brand when we started it.” But Anupam wasn’t convinced. “This valuation doesn’t make sense to me at this stage. I’m out. Stop lying to yourselves. You haven’t achieved anything yet, you’re still headed towards death. Best of luck,” he said.
Nevertheless, the two entrepreneurs received a joint offer from Vineeta and Namita Thapar, who proposed Rs 1 crore in funding in exchange for 2% equity, valuing Arata at Rs 50 crore. The entrepreneurs had a minor counter, which everybody agreed on, and they walked away with the cash they came looking for.
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