Shark Tank India: Entrepreneurs Reveal Why Makers Sent Them Legal Notice, Suspended Account - Exclusive
shark tank india: entrepreneurs reveal why makers sent them legal notice, suspended account – exclusive
Shark Tank India brings together aspiring entrepreneurs from diverse backgrounds and offers them a platform to pitch their business ideas to a panel of esteemed investors, called the ‘Sharks.’ However, some of the founders who appeared on the show have landed in a soup after the makers sent them a legal notice. This was first brought to light by the co-founder of Dorje Teas, a subscription-based tea startup delivering fresh-from-farm and organic Darjeeling Tea to customers across India. On his LinkedIn account, Sparsh Agarwal talked about receiving a legal notice from Sony Pictures Networks India over copyright issues. Times Now/ Telly Talk India exclusively spoke to Agarwal and another startup, P-Tal, to dig more on this topic.
“Shark Tank India should live up to its promise”
Dorje Teas’ Sparsh Agarwal had secured investments from Anupam Mittal, Peyush Bansal and Vineeta Singh last year of Rs 30 lakh for 15 per cent equity, valuing the company at Rs 2 crore. He tells us that Shark Tank India makers sent a legal notice to them for using clips from their own pitch.
Sparsh says, “I don’t even have access to my contract. Shark Tank India is a big brand that is known for promoting start-up system. It would be great if they could live up to their promise and take bake their copyright claims.”
“While I understand the copyright laws supporting it, I don’t understand why they would do this. After all at Dorje Teas, and other companies like Skippi, Assembly, Perfora, Hoovu Fresh, Beyond Snack, Wakao Foods, Nasher Miles and so many others, are spending lacs every month to boost Shark Tank content, thereby giving free publicity and brand recall to the Shark Tank India brand,” Sparsh had written on LinkedIn.
“Also Shark Tank Season 3 has been all about supporting a startup ecosystem in India and building a new India. Magar iss tarah kese banega naya India (How will we build a ‘new India’ this way?),” he asked in a selfie video.
“Our account was suspended for 15 days”
The luxury brassware brand P-TAL featured on the third season of Shark Tank India. Kirti Goel, who is one of the co-founders along with Aditya Agarwal and Gaurav Garg, tells us, “Yes, we also received a legal notice. In fact, our account was also suspended for around 15 days over copyright issues. We had used the videos from Shark Tank India on our page after which this happened. After 15 days, our account was recovered but all the posts about the show were removed.”
Goel further says, “This was written in my contract though so they had the right to do it. The contract clearly mentions we can’t use the videos from the show on our page.”
Apart from them, another startup called Get-A-Whey also received a legal notice from the makers of Shark Tank India.
About Shark Tank India 3
Shark Tank India 3 premiered on January 22, 2024. The Sharks include Namita Thapar, (Executive Director at Emcure Pharmaceuticals Limited), Aman Gupta (Co-founder of Boat), Peyush Bansal (Co-Founder and CEO of Lenskart), Anupam Mittal (Founder and Director of Shaadi.com), Vineeta Singh (CEO of Sugar Cosmetics), Amit Jain (CEO and co-founder of Car Dekho), Ritesh Agarwal (Founder of OYO), Azhar Iqubal (Co-Founder and CEO of Inshorts), Radhika Gupta (CEO of Edelweiss Capital) and film producer Ronnie Screwvala.