Shark Tank India which garnered immense popularity in season one made its premiere yesterday on Sony TV. The first episode of season two saw three pitches of which two received investments from the jury. The sharks -- Peyush Bansal (Founder of Lenskart), Vineeta Singh (CEO of Sugar), Anupam Mittal (Founder of Shaadi.com) -- reprised their roles as judges from the last season. This season is also much-talked because of the absence of ex-BharatPe co-founder Ashneer Grover. He is replaced by Amit Jain, CEO and Co-founder of CarDekho. The viewers took to social media to express their disappointment with the absence of Grover. Biswatosh Sinha, a Shark Tank India viewer and also the Executive Producer of Tamil film 'Santhoshathil Kalavaram,' posted on Twitter, “Shark Tank season 2 without @Ashneer_Grover is like total Doglapan.#SharkTankIndiaS2”. Another user wrote:
Netizens are also angry because the sharks did not invest in a cosmetics brand, Recode. The brand started by co-founders, Rahul Sachdeva and Dheeraj Bansal, pitched their start-up which impressed the sharks. However, they refused to invest because of conflict of interest with Singh who also runs a beauty care brand. This received a lot of backlash from the viewers. They called it ‘unfair’ that a company with decent sales couldn’t get funding as it was interfering with their friendships. One of the viewers, identified as Sudhanshu Snehal, posted on Twitter, “On #SharkTankIndiaS2 People Related to makeup brand's, Pharmaceutical, Eyewear, These Sectors Are Closed for Fund Raising So Forget about this Sectors (sic). Kay Majak Bana Rakha hai Shark Tank ka. Ye logon ne apna group bana Rakha hai is sector me kisko Aage nahi badhne denge.” Another one wrote: “Recode makeup deserved better than this. 15 cr FYI 21-22 with 6% PAT. You kidding me? Making stupid faces and laughing on founders? Horrible. I bet you this brand will beat Sugar cosmetics in 5 years (sic).” One of the viewers even pointed out that Singh’s Sugar Cosmetics is following Recode on Instagram. The episode also saw Thapar and Singh ‘rectifying’ their mistake of not investing in a pickle-manufacturing start-up, Jha Jhi Pickles started by two sisters-in-laws Uma and Kalpana Jha. They had pitched in the first season of Shark Tank India but could not convince the sharks to invest in their company.