Shark Tank India 2: The pitch that made Anupam Mittal say “Hum tamasha karne nahi baithe hain”

The judges on Shark Tank India are known to be some of the sharpest minds in the business world today. Although they have been known to provide the pitchers who grace the stage with words of advice and encouragement, there have been many times when, true to their name, the sharks have ripped into the pitchers they thought needed a reality check.

The latest episode of the show saw Nitesh and Sunil pitch their company Blue Tea, a herbal tea brand that specialises in flower based teas. The founders gave quite an energetic pitch, where they claimed to be the first ever blue coloured ayurvedic tea brand in the world.

Although the judges were impressed by their product, they slowly started to poke holes into the claims the founders made. Shaadi.com CEO and co-founder Anupam Mittal was the first to do so, saying that one of the biggest claims they made was absolutely false.

The businessman said that although the founders claimed to make the first ever Blue Tea brand, Anupam himself had tried out a number of coloured, branded teas, including Blue, when he was in the US. To this, the founders defended themselves by saying that the teas of different colours did exist before them, but they had trademarked the name of Blue Tea.

Anupam declared that this seemed to be ‘gimmicky’ on their part. As the conversation goes on, Aman Gupta calls them smart, but warns them not to be oversmart.

Amit Jain also questioned the duo about their quantity and pricing, and told them outright that it seemed like they were lying to their customers. Anupam went on to say that it was difficult to get a straight answer from the two of them, and remarked “Hum tamasha karne nahi baithe hain, seriously invest karne baithe hain”.

Soon he, Amit and Vineeta Singh declared themselves to be out of the deal as they had concerns over the transparency of the founders.

Aman was the only one willing to offer the founders a deal, which he did after making a mistake in the overall valuation of Blue Tea. But as he was about to correct his mistake, the duo made him a counter offer, which Aman rejected. In the end, Aman offered them Rs 50 lakhs for 2% equity and an additional Rs 25 lakhs as debt at 12%, which the founders accepted.