Shark Tank India 2: Lenskart se ‘panga’? Namita Thapar calls eyewear brand on show better than Peyush Bansal’s company; he reacts (Courtesy: Instagram)
New Delhi: While Lenskart was already a known name in India, its CEO Peyush Bansal rose to fame when he appeared on the first season of business reality show Shark Tank India. Bansal, who is also on the panel of Shark Tank India Season 2, has now found a competitor on the show.
A recent promo of an episode of the show featured an entrepreneur who came to raise equity for his eyewear brand Eyenic. While the sharks expressed joy on seeing a competitor for Bansal’s brand, Emcure Pharma’s Namita Thapar said that his eyewear products looked better than those available at Lenskart.
“Lenskart se toh boht ache hain (These are better than Lenskart),” she said.
Eyenic on Shark Tank India 2
Entrepreneurs Piyuesh Kalra and Sunil Chhabra asked Rs 75 lakh for 6 per cent of their company, valuing it at Rs 12.5 crore. The promo showed Namita commenting, “Lenskart se panga lena koi choti baat nahi hai (It’s not a small thing to go up against Lenskart)”.
While boAt’s Aman Gupta asked them who is the king of this industry, Peyush quipped in to say there’s no King or Kong. Lenskart is focused on making its own lenses, Peyush remarked, while asking Eyenic’s founders if they are doing this. The entrepreneur replied that they are but have very less SKUs (Stock Keeping Units).
Peyush, who made his fortune with his eyewear company Lenskart, didn’t invest in Eyenic saying he does invest in other eyewear companies but for this particular brand, he said that there was “no fundamental differentiation”. And was out of the deal. Rest of the sharks also skipped the deal.
Meanwhile, a recent Linkedin post sparked a debate whether the judges on the show are fit to guide budding entrepreneurs on the show. A few days ago, author Ankit Uttam, who has 16,000 followers on LinkedIn, took a deep dive into how the companies run by these ‘Sharks’ are making in losses and hence do not qualify enough to give reasonable advice to new entrepreneurs. He pointed out that all the ‘Sharks’ except Aman have loss making companies.
