The second season of the business reality show Shark Tank India is back on our TV screens and this time everyone is quite hopeful that it will be bigger and better than the last season. However, many viewers are not happy with the fact that Ashneer Grover is not back in the show because it was he who entertained audiences with his one-liners and statements and many of his one-liners have provided memers with viral meme material.
The entrepreneurs who are on the show as Sharks are – Anupam Mittal, Vineeta Singh, Peyush Bansal, Namita Thapar, Aman Gupta and the new shark is Amit Jain, founder of CarDekho. However, the show has attracted controversy just after the telecast of a couple of episodes because the sharks refused to invest in a brand which is a competitor to the brand owned by their friend, a fellow shark.
The name of the brand in discussion is Recode which is a makeup brand, though the sharks praised the two entrepreneurs for their efforts yet all of them except Peyush Bansal refused to invest in their brand as it is a competitor to Vineeta Singh’s cosmetic brand – SUGAR cosmetics. Vineeta Singh tells the pitchers that she has never heard the name of their brand despite being from the same industry but they leave her shocked by telling that SUGAR follows Recode on Instagram.
Here is the video clip in which you can see the pitchers talking about their brand and how Namita Thapar straightaway refuses to invest in their brand:
[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvO9ozWEpbo[/yt]
Click to watch this video directly on YouTube
This didn’t go well with audiences and many slammed the sharks by calling the program a joke or a TV serial drama. Check out some selected reactions:
Disappointed with shark tank India this season, poor people who have the same line of business as any of the judges, will not get investement just because shark doesn't want to lose their friend. What kind of logic is tht?
— Kriti Nath (@kritinath1234) January 2, 2023
Missed opportunity of taking over a competitor….if Recode is a competition, then owning equity in it would have made sense and later merging it with your own company if it does well…well bad business sense I guess..sometimes it's good to learn from Elon musk
— Darian Johnson (@Darianbhai) January 4, 2023
https://twitter.com/louisharrybrad/status/1609965287809634307
If direct competitors like Recode are not investible just because of your friendly relations with co-sharks, why did you waste yours and their time and energy by even shortlisting them for pitch presentation. Its a joke Sharks.
— Ankur Kakatkar (@ankurkakatkarca) January 3, 2023
I didn't even know that sugar existed they can't even create one good social media campaign or Media advertisement..What she took ranveer and Tamanna and they were like Shukar Hai Sugar hai it's dr caption lmao 🤣🤣 see the creativity
— chetan (@chetan_Parasf) January 4, 2023
After getting slammed on social media platforms, the shark Namita Thapar reacted to all the trolling as she took to Twitter and wrote, “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 :)”
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
What is your take on this whole issue? Are you watching Shark Tank India season 2?