The allure of Shark Tank India, with its promises of lucrative investments, often captivates audiences. Yet, behind the glitz and glamour lies a stark reality. In a recent interview, Namita Thapar, one of the formidable ‘sharks’ featured on the Sony LIV show, peeled back the curtain on the harsh truths lurking backstage, unveiling a disheartening trend: many deals showcased on the program simply do not come to fruition.
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In a candid conversation on the YouTube channel Finance with Sharan, Namita Thapar unveiled the unsettling aftermath of the show, spotlighting a troubling pattern where founders, post-airing, exhibit a concerning lack of integrity by essentially disappearing, leaving investors in the lurch.
She expressed frustration at the stark disparities between the figures touted by founders during their pitches and the actual numbers uncovered during the due diligence process.
“A lot of people are very clueless when it comes to the count of investments because what they don’t realize is when we start doing our due diligence, there are multiple things that… there’s literally a lack of integrity on the part of founders. There are many founders who have ghosted me. There are many founders who, when we do the due diligence, the numbers they quoted at the tank, they are completely off, not just marginally but substantially off,”
she lamented.
Namita emphasized the critical gap between what is presented on the show and the reality uncovered during the rigorous due diligence, urging viewers to recognize this essential distinction. She elaborated,
“So what people don’t realize is, that they see us giving these offers and then they say ‘you did not do the deal’ but what they don’t realize is that there is a lot of integrity issues, which is why the count goes down substantially. I think this is one thing that whoever is following Shark Tank must be aware of, that there is a margin between what’s revealed at the tank vs what really comes out in the due diligence.”
Further enriching the discourse, Vineeta Singh, another astute investor featured on the show, disclosed that founders sometimes receive more enticing offers from alternative investors post-pitch, leading them to abandon previously agreed-upon deals. She remarked,
“Once they air, they get better deals outside so then they prefer to go with those. I understand where an entrepreneur is coming from, where they are optimizing for valuation, feels unfair… but you have to… I mean that’s the rule of the game.”
