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A married couple pitched their ‘bedroom fashion brand’ called Shararat on the latest episode of Shark Tank India. In their pitch, the founders said that like many married couples, they found that the spark in their relationship was fading after the initial honeymoon phase. To keep the spark alive, they started Shararat, through which they started selling ‘baby doll dresses, role play costumes and teddy bears’. They said that the goal of the brand is to bring ‘some fun and spice to the monotonous lives of couples’.
And to do this, they asked for Rs 60 lakh for 2% equity, valuing the company at Rs 30 crore. The founders presented ‘bedroom wear’ to the panel of sharks – Aman Gupta, Ritesh Agarwal, Namita Thapar, Anupam Mittal and Amit Jain – and made it clear that they don’t want to categorise the company as an ‘innerwear brand’ like Victoria’s Secret. They said that the majority of their sales come from regular nightwear, which they sell in order to stay afloat, but the ultimate goal is to make Shararat a brand exclusively to meet bedroom needs.
The founders said that they’re projecting over Rs 4 crore sales in 2024, and have already raised some money from investors at a Rs 10 crore valuation. In their demonstration to the sharks, they also showed hampers for gifting purposes, which include card-based role-playing games. Aman Gupta was fascinated with this. The founders encouraged him to play a game with Anupam, who declared that he would back out immediately but not participate in any such game with Aman. Ritesh Agarwal became noticeably red-faced, which Namita even pointed out. Aman proceeded to ask a few questions written on the cards to Ritesh, who cut him off mid-sentence to ask a serious question about the company.
“Would you give a five-minute lap-dance…” Aman began, before but interrupted by Ritesh. “He’s so embarrassed he won’t even let me finish the question,” Aman joked. Namita was impressed by a statistic provided by the founders, which revealed that more than 60% of their clients are women. “Women in our country don’t prioritise their pleasure, they don’t spend on themselves,” Namita said. But she added that she isn’t quite sold on the company’s scalability. “I think your competitors have a better positioning,” she said, as she bowed out.
Aman bowed out saying that he isn’t excited by the products, which he felt could be naughtier. Anupam said that he couldn’t find a differentiator in their regular products, and felt that the ‘bedroom products’ don’t have much of a market in India. He also doubted the claim that items and games such as these could reignite the spark in a failing relationship. “These products are popular in the US, but they also have the highest divorce rate,” he said. In the end, the founders walked away without securing a deal on the show.
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