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There are certain platforms that every founder dreams about. Shark Tank India is one of them.
For me, it represents a space where years of dedication and building come together in a few powerful minutes to tell your story, where your business is questioned by some of the sharpest minds in the country, and where millions of people watch you stand behind what you have built. Getting that opportunity is huge. Preparing for it is even bigger. Living it is something else entirely.
Hi, I am Yosha, the founder of MeMeraki, and this is the story of our adventure on Shark Tank India.
The First Attempt That Never Was
The first time we reached the final stage was in 2024. I was still in Australia then. We had made it far through the process, further than most, but logistics made it impossible to travel back and forth for the final recording. That chapter felt unfinished in a way that was difficult to articulate. Not quite a failure, but not quite a beginning either. Just a door left ajar.
So when the invitation came again for Season 5, it felt like a second chance we had quietly hoped for. A moment to finish what we had once left incomplete.
The Journey to the Studio
Here is how it unfolded.
On July 14, the invitation to apply arrived. On August 20, we were shortlisted for Phase 2, followed by another extremely detailed form that went deep into both the business and into me as a founder. Financials, origin story, growth plans, artisan partnerships, revenue splits. Everything had to be laid out clearly and honestly.
September 4 brought the audition confirmation. On September 9 came the audition and final screening round itself.
Even before stepping into that room, there had been detailed questionnaires and document submissions. For the audition, we carried our artworks and branding to create a display that truly reflected who we are. The pitching lasted over an hour and a half, followed by intense questioning about the business. In the days that followed, there were multiple calls to understand our operations even further.
The entire process was rigorous and deeply intentional. It pushed us to become more focused, more prepared, and far more aware of our own strengths.
Then came September 23. Confirmation that we would be pitching to the Sharks. Three weeks to recording day.
Those three weeks were unlike anything I had experienced before as a founder. The pitch went through many rewrites. Every financial number was reviewed repeatedly: revenue splits, margins, website analytics, and social media performance. We ensured that every claim we intended to make in that room came in strong and backed by data.
The numbers told a story of consistent doubling: Rs 1 crore in FY 21 to 22, Rs 2 crore the following year, Rs 4 crore the year after that. By the time we were heading into the Tank, we had already crossed Rs 4.8 crore in just the first six and a half months of the current fiscal year, on track to close between Rs 9-10 crore this FY. We had reached breakeven at our monthly revenue run rate of Rs 35 to 40 lakhs and were on track for profitability.
We were pitching a culture tech platform working with over 500 master artists across art forms like Rajasthani Pichwai, Andhra Pradesh's Kalamkari, and Kashmir's Papier Mache. A business with a 60:40 split between D2C and enterprise, an average order value of Rs 20,000, a strong belief for fair pricing for every artist on the platform, and a best-in-space technology stack that included a custom built AR feature allowing customers to visualize how any artwork would look on their walls before buying. The story was rich. The numbers had to match.
We spent significant time planning the studio setup as well. We wanted it to reflect the full spectrum of what MeMeraki creates, from exclusive commission pieces to our bestselling affordable works. It had to feel like us. Our design and special projects team spent a lot of time curating the artworks we wanted to showcase on the show. Once the artwork list was finalised, our logistics team went into overdrive mode to get all the artworks made, framed and shipped to Mumbai in time.
Preparing for the Storm
Going on national TV as a small business puts you in a precarious position. While the idea of hundreds of thousands of new potential customers is exciting, it also forces you to prepare for a scale of demand that your business has not yet seen. Fun fact! When you go on Shark Tank India, there are no guarantees that your pitch will air at all. There is only the promise that you’ll be notified one week in advance if your pitch is picked. So, while we shot our episode in October 2025, it didn’t air until February 13th, 2026.
But the lack of an airing guarantee didn’t mean we could just sit and wait. We went into prep mode in November. We had conversations with several founders who had been on previous seasons to get an idea of the scale and the kind of response they received. Next, we made assumptions about what that same kind of scale would look like for us. In response, we expanded our headcount across customer support, sales, and logistics to serve the anticipated traffic. Top-selling artworks were premade and put into inventory, the website went through a major overhaul to improve the user journey, and each team had to review their SOPs to ensure we could serve the higher-than-usual demand.
Surprisingly, by the time we were done with the preparation, we had already started seeing an uptick in our numbers. Due to all the website improvements and organisational efficiency we had gained in anticipation of the post-episode response.
The Final Three Days
For three days straight, I was on set from 9 AM to 10 PM. We worked with the show’s display team to refine the setup, the pitch practice team to run rehearsals and tighten our answers, the outfits team to determine what would work best on camera, the financial review team to comb through our numbers one more time, and the documents team to ensure every compliance requirement was met. It was exhausting and deeply clarifying at the same time.
The discipline those three days demanded was the same discipline that had built MeMeraki. Years of working with artisans across the country. Years of converting master craftspeople into digital creators. Years of building a team that could handle enterprise projects for organisations like GMR Airports, the Ministry of Culture, Science City Kolkata, and Apollo Hospitals, while simultaneously serving individual patrons across 40-plus countries. All of that was distilled into what we would carry into that room.
October 23: Pitch Day
We reached at 7 AM.
Two hours of hair and makeup followed, longer than my own wedding day. Before entering, we were walked through the layout and given detailed instructions about how to enter, how to stand, and how the call a friend option works. I ensured my brother, a founder himself, would be ready in case we needed that call.
There were a few light pre-entry questions, sponsor photos that I felt slightly awkward in, and then the doors opened.
Walking in and seeing the Sharks seated there, that moment felt real in a way nothing else had before.
Our episode had 5 Sharks on the panel, including Kunal Bahl (Co-founder of Snapdeal and Titan Capital), Varun Alagh (Co-founder and CEO of Mamaearth), Namita Thapar (Executive Director of Emcure Pharmaceuticals), Viraj Bahl (Founder and MD of Veeba) and Vineeta Singh (CEO of SUGAR Cosmetics)
We walked in asking for Rs 50 lakhs for 1.67% equity, valuing MeMeraki at Rs 30 crore. The pitch was anchored in something we had built carefully over five years: a culture tech platform that does not just sell art, it gives master artisans sustainable, year round income. It takes art forms that are centuries old, from villages in Rajasthan and the interiors of Andhra Pradesh to homes in Singapore and offices in London. MeMeraki runs on a dual model, a premium D2C marketplace alongside an enterprise vertical that has delivered large-scale cultural installations at some of the most prestigious institutions in the country. And it does all of this with hybrid inventory model with a mix of ready-to-ship and made-to-order pieces.
The Sharks engaged deeply. Kunal highlighted the cultural weight of what we were building, taking India's master artists toward the recognition they have always deserved. That observation resonated with exactly why MeMeraki exists. Namita spoke about international expansion and reaching the NRI community more strategically, something we have since begun working on with renewed focus. Varun was interested in the technology and viral aspects of our business, reflecting our focus on both the demand and supply sides of the business. Viraj could also relate to the mission and business on a more personal level on account of his wife being an interior designer herself. Vineeta raised the question of whether claiming breakeven while seeking capital to burn on stores created a tension, and it was a fair challenge. Having already raised a round recently, we already had clarity in where we stood and how we wanted things to go.
Then came the offers. Namita moved first, offering a 2 Shark deal with Viraj, Rs 50 lakhs for 2% equity. Kunal and Varun came together with Rs 1 crore for 4% equity, matching the valuation of our prior funding round.
In that moment, I did something I had thought about but had not known I would actually do until I was standing there. I asked all four of them to come together.
They did!
The final deal: Rs 1 crore for 4% equity, valuing MeMeraki at Rs 25 crore. Four Sharks, one shared belief in where this is going.
What Came After
The episode aired on February 13, 2026. What followed was something we had prepared for but still could not fully anticipate.
The immediate response was significant across every metric we track. Daily website traffic grew by over 300% in the week following the telecast compared to where it had been running before the episode aired. Sales in the first week post telecast came in roughly 68% higher than a comparable pre telecast week, with the momentum building across days rather than arriving all at once. Social media following grew across platforms, and 25 investor reach outs came in within that first week alone.
What those numbers do not yet fully capture is the longer term picture, and that context matters. Art purchases have a naturally longer consideration and conversion cycle. The price points involved, and the thoughtful, personal nature of buying original handcrafted work, mean that customers often spend weeks researching, revisiting, and deciding before they place an order. The surge in traffic post-telecast has brought a significant number of high intent leads into our ecosystem. The full commercial impact of the episode will take a few months to materialize, and we are confident that the momentum we are seeing will translate into sustained growth over that horizon.
As of writing this, Titan Capital is leading the due diligence process on behalf of the investing Sharks, and we are working closely with their teams, sharing documentation and data as part of that process.
The community response moved us in ways we had not expected. Over 3,000 people reached out across WhatsApp groups, private messages, and comment sections, artists, customers, extended supporters, people who had followed MeMeraki quietly for years. We hosted a watch party at our store at The Kunj. Our artist Shehzaad ji came down from Kishangarh to watch along with us. Seeing every stakeholder in that room, from artisans to collaborators, feel such pride and ownership in the journey, it truly felt like a collective milestone.
What the Process Built in Us
The cameras captured a few minutes. The real work happened long before that.
The Shark Tank process pushed us to know our business inside out in a way that years of day to day operations had not. We went deeper into our numbers. We reviewed every margin. We questioned our growth plans. We tested how scalable the model truly is. That discipline made us stronger founders. Not because of the funding or the deal or the national visibility, but because of what we uncovered in ourselves during the preparation.
Last year, stars didn’t align to make it happen. This year, we walked in ready.
The capital raised will go toward strengthening our technology backbone, expanding enterprise partnerships, and deepening structured engagement with artisan communities through onboarding, design intervention, and research led documentation. The vision is clear: to scale into a Rs 100 crore plus business over the next four to five years while ensuring that the artists who make MeMeraki possible are the ones whose lives change most in the process.
We did not walk into that Tank just to close a deal. We walked in to show that impact and profitability are not opposites. That culture can be a category. That the artisans of India deserve a platform as ambitious as they are skilled.
And we walked out with four Sharks who believed the same thing.
