Table of Contents
- The Pitch: Big Vision, Bigger Losses
- Sharks Circle: Doubts Over Model and Market
- A Lone Yes: Kanika Tekriwal’s Calculated Risk
- What It Says About India’s Startup Moment
The Pitch: Big Vision, Bigger Losses
On a recent episode of Shark Tank India Season 5, four graduates of Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur walked into the tank with a proposition that was both earnest and precarious: fix urban loneliness through offline community building while losing ₹23 lakh a month.
Their company, Misfits, founded in 2024 by Shashwat Narhatiyar, Shashwat Kar, Saurabh Sharma and Chaitanya Dhawan, organizes sports and activity-based meet-ups across Delhi NCR. According to the founders, the platform has hosted 4,000 meet-ups attended by 20,000 paying members all without paid marketing.
But the financials jarred the room. Monthly revenues hovered between ₹20 and ₹22 lakh. Monthly burn: ₹23 lakh. A team of 24 employees drew a combined salary of ₹4 lakh. The founders sought ₹1 crore for 1.25 percent equity, implying an ₹80 crore valuation.
The reaction was swift.
Sharks Circle: Doubts Over Model and Market
Among the panelists were Anupam Mittal, Aman Gupta and Kanika Tekriwal. What followed was less a negotiation than a cross-examination.
Gupta questioned the size of the team and the platform’s repeat usage. Once users found their “tribe,” he argued, what would compel them to return? “Occasional usage” was not a business model, he suggested. The implication was clear: community may be sticky emotionally, but not necessarily commercially.
Mittal was more direct. The product, he said, risked being redundant in a country where WhatsApp functions as a social operating system. “Tribes can move to WhatsApp,” he noted, questioning whether Misfits could build defensible value beyond event discovery. In India, where messaging apps dominate daily coordination, replacing or even supplementing them is no small feat.
Other sharks echoed structural concerns. Marketplace businesses, one observed, require liquidity on multiple sides hosts, venues and users. Without sufficient density, platforms risk becoming glorified event-planning tools rather than scalable ecosystems.
By the midpoint of the discussion, four investors had opted out.
A Lone Yes: Kanika Tekriwal’s Calculated Risk
Tekriwal’s stance diverged. While acknowledging gaps in product clarity and especially in safety protocols a concern she emphasized from a female user’s perspective she framed the startup within a larger social problem: loneliness.
Urban India, like much of the world, is negotiating the paradox of hyperconnectivity and shallow ties. Digital exposure has expanded networks while thinning intimacy. Misfits’ thesis that structured offline gatherings can rebuild depth appealed to her.
“I believe in this problem,” she said, even while conceding the product was not yet convincing. The founders, she added, did not appear rigid a trait she seemed to value as much as traction.
Her offer reframed the negotiation. ₹1 crore for 3.33 percent equity, cutting the valuation to ₹30 crore. After brief countering, the deal closed at 3 percent.
The valuation reset was stark: from ₹80 crore aspirational to ₹30 crore negotiated reality. But the capital came with endorsement and scrutiny.
What It Says About India’s Startup Moment
The episode underscored a tension at the heart of India’s startup ecosystem. On one side are scalable, tech-heavy models optimized for rapid growth and defensibility. On the other are ventures chasing softer, harder-to-quantify problems belonging, community, mental well-being.
Misfits’ economics remain fragile. A burn exceeding revenue leaves little margin for experimentation. Yet the founders’ pedigree and early traction suggest demand, however niche.
Whether the company evolves into a true marketplace with durable network effects or plateaus as a curated events platform will determine the outcome of Tekriwal’s wager.
As she signed the commitment deed, she offered the founders a challenge: prove the skeptics wrong.
In a tank that often rewards sharp unit economics over sentiment, this was a bet less on spreadsheets and more on sociology and on four founders’ capacity to turn monthly losses into sustained connection.
EDITED BY – SARTHAK MOOLCHANDANI
{ STUDENT OF MANAGEMENT STUDIES AND INTERN AT HOSTELBEE}