In the latest episode of Shark Tank India Season 2, amid a dramatic bidding war between the sharks over the digital e-clinic business DigiQure E-Clinic, Peyush Bansal told the pitcher that they had made the biggest mistake of their lives by taking the offer from Namita. While Namita refutes saying for Peyush the grapes are sour.
DigiQure and its journey
Pitchers Akansh Tandon and Soumen Banerjee were the second pitch for the day and presented DigiQure, which is a healthcare center based on telemedicine technology that allows rural regions to access city doctors for better diagnosis. The founders have two different IT companies, and they are both founders of each.
The founders want to reach all rural areas and offer affordable and reliable healthcare.
Akansh, while explaining the reason for having come up with the idea, shares a personal experience where he talks about the lack of medicine and its impact in rural regions. Akansh was close to 6 years old when his househelp lost her daughter due to diarrhea. His househelp didn't have the money to go to the city for treatment for her daughter, and she lost her to a disease that could have been cured. This incident changed his life, he said. After completing his studies at NIT Bhopal, he was doing a government job, but he desired to help people, for which he left the job and began working on this start up.
Bidding war
Vineeta Singh, co-founder of Sugar Cosmetics, and Namita Thapar, executive director of Emcure Pharmaceuticals, offer Rs 40 lakh for 20 per cent equity on the condition that they merge their IT companies, as two companies cannot have the same founder. Peyush Bansal, founder-CEO of Lenskart.com, on the other hand, offered Rs 1 crore for 25 per cent equity with the same condition. With the bidding war beginning, Anupam Mittal, the founder-CEO of Shaadi.com, also dives in with an offer of Rs 1 crore for 10 per cent equity, with the condition that the companies have to be merged and the e-clinic should be named after 'Geeta' the girl who had passed away.
After this, the founders come up with a counter offer of Rs 40 lakh for 10 per cent equity, which goes to Thakur alone as Singh backs out.
This upsets Bansal, as he says that this is a huge mistake and you are not understanding the business. Mittal, however, asks them to change the name in honor of Geeta; Thakur, however, refuses and says, "We will remember her in our hearts."
Bansal later says that he feels sorry for the founders as they have chosen to go with a big medical firm, which will kill their business. Thakur simply responds by saying that the grapes are sour.
