A Former OYO Employee Presented his Idea to The Sharks on Shark Tank India 4; Ritesh Agarwal Calling him the Best Ambassador for OYO.

The latest episode of the show featured two young entrepreneurs from Delhi, Paurav Rastogi and Shamin Kapoor. Paurav previously worked with Ritesh Agarwal and has experience working for the travel tech company OYO. This indicates the entrepreneurial spirit and innovation coming from the region.

Shark Tank Update: Shark Tank India season 4 has started, and it brings the most innovative startup stories on the show. Recently, in one of its episodes, two young entrepreneurs from Delhi, Paurav Agarwal and Shamin, pitched their innovative idea called “Speed Kitchens” to the sharks.

The young entrepreneurs, Paurav and Shamin, presented their company, Speed Kitchens, to a panel of investors popularly known as “sharks” comprising Aman Gupta, Ritesh Agarwal, Vineeta Singh, Azhar Iqubal, and Kunal Bahl. Their focus is on the provision of facilities that allow kitchens to operate shared, single, or multi-site bases for nascent brands. In their pitch, they requested an investment of Rs 2 crore in return for a 3% equity stake that values Speed Kitchens at Rs 66 crore. Paurav drew special attention to his international work experience in his presentation, specifically the role he had played at OYO before the pandemic.

While discussing his role at the travel tech platform OYO, Vineeta asked Paurav if he had worked with Ritesh. Paurav blushed slightly while nodding his head as a confirmation that they were acquainted. Ritesh, on the other hand, needed a moment to recall who Paurav was. Aman noticed that during conversations with Ritesh, Paurav changed quite visibly when he was presenting his ideas.

“Kuch toh gadbad hai, Daya,” he said with a jest, asking Paurav why he had become so meek when talking to Ritesh.

Paurav narrated how Ritesh would sometimes turn out to be moody or temperamental at times. And yet, there was nothing evident about him to indicate that anything was wrong with him. This Vineeta and others could not fathom because Ritesh always had been their friendly friend who never indicated a possibility of his having anger management issues.

The ‘sharks‘ were interested in knowing why Paurav wanted to raise funds from other sources instead of turning to Ritesh to help him.

He said that after leaving OYO, Paurav had lost contact with Ritesh. He had tried several times to reach out to Ritesh again. On their meetup, Ritesh was thrilled at meeting up with Paurav and termed him to be the best ambassador that OYO ever had. He reflected on Paurav’s positive influence during his time at OYO.

During the offers, sharks presented some interesting ideas to the entrepreneurs. One of the major proposals was a shark who offered an investment of Rs 2 crore in return for an equity stake of 10% in the business. Azhar was very much interested in the proposal. On the other hand, Kunal was very impressed with Paurav and thus made a more serious proposal by offering Rs 3 crores for the same 10% equity stake.

Ritesh said, “We can give you Rs 3 crore. Money is not a problem.”

After a brief consultation, the entrepreneurs approached the ‘sharks’ with a reduced equity offer of 4% and expressed their interest in forming a partnership among all three parties. Following some negotiations, they reached a final agreement, securing Rs 2 crore in exchange for a 6% stake in their venture. Paurav ultimately accepted this offer after his initial attempts to negotiate further were unsuccessful.

The entrepreneurs agreed on a lower equity offering of 4% after consulting the ‘sharks’ and communicated that they would be open to a partnership between the two of them. They bargained with some counter-acceptance, which brought the agreement to its final state with the investment of Rs 2 crore against a 6% stake in their business venture. Paurav eventually accepted the offer when he was not able to negotiate more for the proposed offer.

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