The Shark Tank is a great place to find out about the different and innovative startups that are coming up in the country. One such startup, that has gained a lot of eyeballs with their appearance on the tank is Prorata Car. The fractional car ownership company bagged an investment from sharks Peyush Bansal and Anupam Mittal. The company raised ₹50 lakhs in equity at a valuation of ₹5 crore and another 50 lakhs as debt.

We spoke to the company’s founder Sanjeev Jain to find out about his experience in the tank and what’s next for his startup. Here are the excerpts from the interview.

The Shark Tank Experience

“It was a one-of-a-kind experience because we are not used to any kind of TV shows or even facing the camera,” this is how Jain describes his appearance on the popular reality show.

Talking about the road to Shark Tank, Jain told Benzinga India that “the journey started when we got a call from the show saying that you must apply. At that time, we were still in the early stages, so we were doing multiple pilot runs in different societies trying to estimate our product and services.

So my thought process was basically to apply next year. I worried that we are a pre-revenue company and we may not get funding and if you don’t get funding in Shark Tank, then the public sees you in a different way altogether,” Jain added.

“But we took the plunge and applied. We got through the first round. Then we got a zoom round then we got the audition so multiple processes and then finally shoot happened around November-December.”

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The Impact

Shark Tank India is not only seen as a place to bag investors it is also a great platform to advertise and market one’s brand. We’ve heard about many brands that saw increased interest in terms of sales and publicity after their episode aired. So we asked Jain, what reactions they were getting after the episode aired.

“After the show aired, we are getting good traction on app downloads and also a lot of interest from investors. We’ve had more than 10 investors reach out and show interest. Some of them are VCS and a lot of angel investors reached out to us.”

Apart from this he also added that customers have also started seeing the brand in a different light and Shark Tank has provided the business with validation. As per Jain, this trust factor that has been brought by the appearance on national television has made it easier for the company to reach out to its customers.

When asked how the show and being on TV has impacted his life personally and whether he was getting stopped in the street now, Jain said “Once you participate in a national television show, whether you go to any restaurants or somewhere at least one or two people will recognize you, we are not celebrities but at least startup world community love to talk to us.”

He added that whenever people walk up to him and stop him he starts pitching them the idea and the company to garner interest. Jain also spoke about how the best part of the whole thing was the happiness of his kids. “My kids regularly watch Shark Tank and when your kids see you in the Shark Tank pitching in front of the Sharks and all those things that’s the real happiness.”

What’s It’s Like In The Tank?

A common thing every Shark Tank viewer imagines is what would it be like to be in the Tank. Here’s what Jain told us about his experience.

“To be honest at the very beginning of the pitch, I was a little nervous because I have never faced a camera even in my marriage. I’m not a camera person. But after that, when the Q&A started, I gave all the people proper, to-the-point answers because I had full clarity about my business. And I think That’s why we are getting a lot of good comments on the Shark Tube YouTube channel.”

Talking about the sharks that chose to take a bet on him and his company Jain said that both Anupam Mittal and Peyush Bansal understood the business and also asked some pretty insightful questions.

What’s Next?

Talking about the way ahead Jain said, “We are now confident enough that in the next three months, we will deploy at least anything between 50-100 cars. So we are on the path of getting our product market fit and raising an institutional round of around $2 to $5 million. That will help us scale and grow exponentially.”

Talking about the Shark Tank due diligence, Jain said that most of it was done and the cheque should hit their bank soon. “It’s a process of three months, we are already two months into the process. Since we were pre-revenue at that point in time, there was not a lot of paperwork. Their lawyers had approached and they asked us for the documents, we have submitted a lot of documents, some we will submit and it should be completed soon.”

To know more about the company read our interview with the founder from last year.