Raj Gupta, co-founder of the protein brand Beast Life, recently said in a podcast that ‘sharks’ were more interested in Gaurav Taneja aka Flying Beast than the product itself. During the pitch, Gaurav Taneja received pointed criticism from the judges, particularly Anupam Mittal, whose remarks branding Taneja a ‘terrible’ entrepreneur have gained considerable attention online.
Gupta elaborated that the judges appeared to be ‘trying to mess around’ during their presentation, creating tension over uneven equity distribution instead of focusing on the strengths of their product.
“I could feel the ‘sharks’ were more interested in Gaurav than the product. I even said a couple of times that we should talk about the product, but the minute we tried to talk about the business, they wouldn’t let us. They even tried to get us to fight by pointing out unequal equity,” he said in a podcast.
He expressed disappointment that positive feedback they received about their offering was omitted from the final cut. Gupta emphasized that Shark Tank India is marketed as an unscripted show, claiming there are no retakes during pitches.
“Shark Tank India is not scripted at all; everything unfolded in real-time. Founders prepare 2-3 days before the shoot, but we didn’t practice much,” he explained. Despite this, Gupta felt that the editing skewed the narrative away from their business’s merits.
Gaurav Taneja, sharing his grievances with the show’s producers, stated that his segment was altered to cast him in a negative light.
“Gaurav, who was on the panel with judge Azhar Iqubal, also remarked that he gained nothing from his Shark Tank experience,” highlighting his dissatisfaction with the entire process.
Taneja and Gupta pitched their brand in a previous episode of Shark Tank. During their pitch, they mentioned they logged sales worth ₹1 crore within an hour of launching their website.
They sought an investment of ₹1 crore in exchange of 1 per cent stake in the company to scale the business of easily digestible proteins.
