At the desi Shark Tank hunt, this DU duo sold their recycling idea in just five minutes!

Everyone has ideas. The question, often, is can you sell the hell out of it? Vansh Oberoi and Anmol Garg clearly did. Oberoi and Garg are second year management students from Delhi University. They had been trying for seven months to get funding for their project — recycling pet bottles collected from college campuses and incentivising people to sell them rather than discard them.
At the investor hunt, Shark Tank, held earlier this month, the duo took all of five minutes to attract financing. Shark Tank, originated as a reality show in the US, where entrepreneurs competed to get their ideas greenlit by investors. In India, it was organised by IIM Bangalore as part of Bzzwings, the institute’s business competition.

Oberoi and Garg, (who called themselves Team E-Sense) were one of the three business plans chosen by a panel of investors. The other two teams that won funding — Team Inova from the Indian School of Business and Team Ximknos from Xavier Institute of Management. All the teams got Rs 5 lakh as monetary investment for a certain percentage of equity share.

For Sourav Panda, one of the four members of Team Ximknos (Abhilash Varma, Vinay Garg and Leenus Rof fun Silva), the event was a great opportunity. “We had never pitched before investors before. The only motivation we had was that we were clear about our plan and research,” said Panda.

The team intends to start a café chain that sells millet-based food items — an idea that will be executed via online and offline models. Their investor, Sreejith Nedumpully of Upaya Social Ventures, says he was impressed by their pitch. “They want to make millet tasty in order to attract youngsters. They got that part right,” he adds.

Sreejith will mentor the group and plug holes in the plan before it takes off next year, when the team graduates.

Oberoi hopes this experience will bolster their standing with industrialists wouldn’t take them seriously earlier. “This will give us legal backing now to approach new investors,” he says. His partner Garg describes the Q&A round as a grilling session, where they “panicked” a bit. But the duo caught the attention of investor, VGN Prakash, founder of Milltec Machinery. “They were proud of their business plan and down-to-earth. You need these qualities to sustain this kind of project,” Prakash reveals.

Team Inova, Aniket Miglani and his three partners (Niharika Jain, Niharika Joshi and Nitima Malhotra), pitched a plan to produce bedsheets made of hemp fibre, because they are durable and bacteria resistant. They had watched the international version of Shark Tank. However, facing the real deal was different.“We had to think on our feet,” says Miglani. Once they did, it became a pitch perfect experience.

IIM’s business plan winner

At Bzzwings, one project out of several submitted, was eventually picked as the best business plan and won a funding of Rs 45,000. That honour went to Ish Jindal (above), who has been running Padhaaro, a twoyear-old service that connects tourists to localities who know their city well. “Funding is great but when you start something, you also want emotional backing,” recalls Jindal, who was keen to meet Phanindra Sama, founder of RedBus and one of Shark Tank’s panelists.