Shark Tank India: Judges of the show were selected from a list of 300 potential founders reveals Ashneer Grover

Shark Tank India has been a runaway success on TV. The ‘sharks’ and their unique personalities in particular have been the highlight of the show’s season 1 for many viewers. Vineeta Singh, Namita Thappar, Aman Gupta , Ashneer Gover, Ghazal Agha, Anupam Mittal and Peyush Bansal have now found a fan base of their own on social media and have even become great friends. However, did you the selection process for these ‘sharks’ of the show?

Ashneer Grover shared how he came to be a part of the Shark Tank India in an interview and revealed how the judges were selected by Sony Entertainment Television from a pool of 300 entrepreneurs. The co-founder of Bharat Pe told, podcaster Raj Shamani during a chat how Sony had employed a firm called Venture Catalyst to sift through the early pitches. The firm which is also an investor in Gover’s former company Bharat Pe, among others introduced him to the makers of Shark Tank India.

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“Sony for the short-listing of pitches had reached out to Venture Catalyst, an early stage investor. Venture Catalyst had invested in Bharat Pe, I gave them very good returns in the tune of 80X. So Venture Catalyst had helped the channel prepare a list of 300 potential founders in India that they could approach. They did their own background research and reached out to me.”

Talking further about how came to be a part of the show, Ashneer said, “I had not seen the show so there was no craze, they said ‘you’ll be appearing on Shark Tank India and will have to make investments’. I had very good conversation with the show runner, this guy called Vimal, and he also liked me. Then he said, ‘I had fun talking to you via Zoom but we want to visit your house and do a mock pitch. We then had a mock pitch at home, one was solo then there was one with Aman. Then they said ‘Sir you please come, we want you on the show’.”

Ashneer also enquired who the other ‘sharks’ would be and only when he was satisfied did he agree to be a part of the show. He went on to become one of the most popular members on the judges panel.

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