Last week, Ankit Uttam wrote a long post on LinkedIn about why A tank with sharks India “never worked” for him. The author and marketer compares the Indian version with its American counterpart and shares how companies led by the judges on Shark Tank India actually end up losing money. He went on to say that sharks are not credible enough to give business advice to contestants who come on the show. (Also read: Netizens disagree as Shark Tank’s Namita Thapar claims ‘educated housekeeper’ posted hateful comment from her phone)
Ankit explained on LinkedIn why he decided to look into the financial fortunes of the Indian sharks: “Shark Tank India has never worked for me as a show since its first season, unlike its American counterpart. In the American version of the show, every judge (Barbara Corcoran, Mark Cuban , Lori Greiner, Robert Herjavec, Daymond John, and Kevin O’Leary) runs businesses that actually make a profit instead of riding on venture capital money or wallowing in huge losses.”
Looking at each referee from the first season, he broke down their earnings over the past two years. He wrote, “Vineeta Singh’s SUGAR Cosmetics posted a loss of INR 75 crore on FY21 at Rs.21.1 Cr in FY21. Ghazal Alagh’s Mamaearth reported a profit for FY22 for the first time since inception after a loss of INR 14.44 crore. Rs.1,332 crore in FY21 in the year 21 a ₹428 crore in FY20. The company also reported a net profit of 4 crore. for the first half of FY23. So the company has only recently started to turn a profit. Also, a recent mint report says that they are going for an IPO of INR 24,000. 24000 crores when profits are only 14 crores !!!!!! (shocked face emoji).”
Talking about former first season judge Ashneer Grover, Ankit stated, “BharatPe’s total loss was ₹5,594 crore in FY 2022. In FY 2021, the company posted a total loss of ₹2,961 million. Ashneer Grover was removed in 2022 from the company so these losses will also be under his leadership as he was also at the helm in FY22. Anupam Mittal owns brands like Shaadi. com, Makaan .com, Mauj Mobile. Apart from Shaadi, his other brands seem to be either dead or not making enough money as there is minimal or no media coverage of them. Even the financial results of Shaadi are NOT public except for one recent news about its future IPO which may or may not arrive as one such attempt was also made in 2009.”
He added to that Namita Thapar she was only part of her company because of her father who was the CEO. He said, “Peyush Bansal’s Lenskart reported a consolidated loss of INR 102.3 crore in FY22. Enough talking! Namita Thapar is NOT the founder of her company Emcure Pharma. It is her father who started it and is still its CEO. So to some, her credentials may seem similar to Ananya Pandey’s in Bollywood? (Did anyone hear nepotism!! eye roll emoticon). Amit Jain’s CarDekho posted losses ₹246.5 crore in the financial year 2021-22.
The author concluded that only Aman Gupta’s BoAt was the only profitable company. He shared, “To me, the Shark Tank India version feels like Ekta Kapoor’s rendition of the more interesting American version of the show.” Ankit also listed the data sources he used in his research and analysis in a separate second post as users commented on his claims in the first post. Hosted by comedian Rahul Dua, the second season of Shark Tank India airs on Sony TV from Monday to Friday at 9 PM.
