Jain ‘Shark Tank’ in Pune sees Rs 3.5 cr in investments go to three pitches

If Shark Tank were a business, it would be disqualified by Jito, the youth wing of the Jain Incubation and Innovation Foundation. Jito has certain guidelines for startups to be admitted into their network.

“They must necessarily have one-third of their founders to be Jain. And they should have their businesses based on Jain principles,” says Jinal Shah, incubation manager.

That translates into non-admittance of companies engaged in alcohol products, meat and leather, guns and ammunition.

Yet, in a true display of the global nature of the startup the ecosystem, Shark Tank is exactly hat Jito organised recently - a startup pitch event in Pune which was attended by 1,100 entrepreneurs from the Jain community.

Six startups pitched before an investor panel and three took home a total of Rs 3.5 crore in investment.

Says Shah, “The foundation is a global organisation with 70 chapters across nine zones. While we have a 9,000 sqft incubation centre at Mumbai, we mentor and provide networking facilities to our startups via the web.”

“Go Float is a company that makes floating safety devices. It asked for Rs 50 lakh and Sabse Sasta Dukan was looking to raise Rs 2 crore; both got the funding,” says Shah.

Manoj Mehta, one of the investors, says, “We investors are part of Jito and are in the process of putting together a fund. Most of us have our own businesses and are looking for alternate ways to add to our wealth via such startups that hold great promise. I put in Rs 75 lakh in Sabse Sasta Dukan, because I was very impressed by the last-mile delivery of medicinces that they offer in rural areas.”

Anish Agarwal, founder of Sabse Sasta Dukan, feels that the high success rate of investments is largely on account of the pre-screening, due diligence and investor-investee interactions; all before the actual pitch.

“I have been to several such investor pitching events and have seen that several investment announcements fall through because the investor finds several gaps in the businesses, which could range from paperwork to business model. This event, which followed the Shark Tank method, had the due diligence done by the team, offered us several interactions with investors so we got a better understanding of what the investor is looking for; while investors knew beforehand all the details of the companies presenting before them.”