“What can I say, the whole of India didn’t like it?” Recode Studios co-founder Dheeraj Bansal tells Business Today. Bansal made a pitch for his new company on Shark Tank India 2. Despite having a sizable following and respectable stats, he and his co-founder Rahul Sachdeva were unable to secure funding.
Cosmetics and makeup are sold by Recode. It is present in more than 250 stores all throughout India. The company’s website and mobile application are also used to sell the products online. They began offering products from other brands on their marketplace in 2021. Recently, the company opened three franchisee locations in Raipur, Delhi, and Faridabad.
While Peyush Bansal, the CEO of Lenskart, and Anupam Mittal, the founder and CEO of People Group, weren’t sold on the brand, Namita Thapar, the executive director of Emcure Pharmaceuticals, and Aman Gupta, the co-founder and chief marketing officer of boAt, declined to invest in a company because it would interfere with their friendship with Vineeta Singh, who also owns the cosmetics line Sugar.
Being a shark doesn’t mean we aren’t entitled to our independent values and speaking candidly, so if I don’t invest in a fellow sharks competition, that’s me, no regrets, and if I call out toxicity & don’t join the ignorant that celebrate people w/ lack of integrity.. that’s me:) Thapar even tweeted in defence of herself after receiving backlash.
Bansal, a co-founder of Recode, is reluctant to speak personally on the entire situation. “It is what it is, and that is why we are trending,” he merely states. However, Bansal claims that Peyush Bansal was the only reason he attended Shark Tank. Our favourite judge is him. Just for him, we went to the performance. He continues, “We are an eCommerce platform and Peyush sir has experience in omnichannel strategy as well as eCommerce. This is another reason why the Lenskart CEO is their favourite. We wanted to use his knowledge for our company.
The valuation was another point of dispute for the sharks. At a valuation of Rs 100 crore, Sachdeva and Bansal offered to raise Rs 1 crore in exchange for 1% stock. Bansal explains the valuation of Rs 100 crore and claims that if the sharks had questioned more, he would not have been able to support the valuation. He informs BT that they anticipate having Rs 30 crore in sales by the end of FY23. In his words, “My ask for Rs 100 crore with a shark on board was completely justified. Mamaearth, Sugar, Plum, and Juicy Chemistry are all overvalued by roughly 10x.”
Recode had revenues of Rs. 15 crores at the end of the previous fiscal year and Rs. 11 crores so far this year.
Even though the start-up was unable to secure finance, viewers and internet users responded favourably to it. Bansal recognises this and says that their appearance on the show garnered them a lot of notoriety. He laments, “Now I’m getting calls from those parts of the country I’ve never even heard of.”
He claims that they would now concentrate on funding Google Ads. “We want to make ourselves more visible on Google and Facebook.” To reach the broad market, they also intend to collaborate with multi-brand stores.
The entrepreneurial team’s preferred shark was unable to join, but they are still committed to the funding process as a whole. He says, “We’ll get in touch with more angel investors and venture capital firms.
