In the latest season of Shark Tank India, a 19-year-old founder impressed the sharks with his previous success in building several startups. At the start of his speech, Himanshu Rajpurohit, the 19-year-old founder of health app Nexera.Health, claimed that he had started 2 companies before and sold them to start a third successfully.
Nexera.Health is an end-to-end healthcare platform for businesses and focuses on preventive care, diagnostics and telehealth. The platform also aims to improve employee health and productivity.
Rajpurohit sought funding of ₹75 lakh in exchange for a 1.5 per cent stake in his company. He also mentioned that OYO founder Ritesh Agarwal inspired him to start his entrepreneurial journey at a young age.
Despite an impressive start, the 19-year-old entrepreneur failed to win the deal from the sharks due to his overconfidence.
The pitch went viral on social media. Needless to say, netizens were furious at the young founder’s overconfidence and called the speech “difficult to watch.” “I wanted to be treated like a prodigy,” one social media user commented. “His arrogance was next level,” a second user wrote.
“His web page was extremely misleading. Our partners had AWS, Microsoft, etc. The whole talk seemed like a scam as soon as the website was displayed. No wonder all the sharks gave up immediately,” wrote a third user.
“Nexera’s pitch was hard to watch. The pitcher kept honking non-stop. I still don’t know what his product is because I disconnected halfway through. Too much bak bak,” said one other user.
While Kunal Bahl was unsure about the app’s appeal among CFOs, Vineeta Singh asked the young founder about the viability of his app in a saturated market.
While Rajpurohit doesn’t seem to have an answer to these questions, the situation only got worse when he said he was on the show for mentoring and could have raised investments elsewhere.
This response irked BoAt Lifestuyle co-founder Aman Gupta, who accused Himanshu of having “a successor hangover that is reflected in your third company.” Bahl also pointed out that the 19-year-old apparently rushed to create a new version of the app just 2 days before his appearance on Shark Tank India, which made the sharks even more skeptical.
Additionally, Namita Thapar, executive director of Emcure Pharmaceuticals, also declined to make an offer, citing the application’s lack of differentiation.
