Shark Tank India is back again with its season 02. It’s first episode premiered on Sony Tv and its digital sister concern, Sony Liv on January 02, 2023 at 10PM. But along with it, episode 01 brought in its fare share of controversies already. There were three pitches that were aired during the telecast of episode 01, one was of a premium tea brand from Darjeeling with its owners hailing from Kolkata. The Sharks loved the way one of the co-owners crafted storytelling around their brand. Then came in women duo from Bangalore, who pitched flowers for puja, with an increased shelf life of 15 days. They were loved by the Sharks for their knowledge of their business too. And then came in a duo from Panchkula and Ludhiana, who pitched a cosmetics range brand to the Sharks, who felt they were rather impromptu decision makers. Their brand was called Recode.
Now, Recode is the business that brought in controversy. Namita Thappar, the executive board of director of Emcure ousted herself from investing in the cosmetics brand business, Recode stating the reason that as per her principals, she cannot invest in a business that’s a direct competition to her friend, Vineeta Singh, owner of Sugar Cosmetics, a very popular cosmetics brand. Even Aman Gupta, owner of Boat, remembering an anecdote from season 01, stated the same reason for not investing in Recode because he wanted to prioritise friendship and relations over business.
This, however, did not go down well with netizens, who reacted adversely against the two entrepreneurs and Sharks on Twitter. Aman Gupta did not comment but Namita Thappar did take to her Twitter handle and comment on the backlash. And this is what she said:
Being a shark doesn’t mean we are not entitled to our independent values & speaking candidly so if I don’t invest in a fellow sharks competition, that’s me, no regrets & if I call out toxicity & don’t join the ignorant that celebrate people w lack of integrity.. that’s me 🙂
— Namita (@namitathapar) January 3, 2023
Who is the toxicity comment about ? Samajhdar ko ishara kaafi 🤓
— Namita (@namitathapar) January 3, 2023