Shark Tank India Season 5 was the biggest one yet. The show ran from January 5 to March 17, 2026 on Sony LIV with 52 episodes and a record 13 sharks, five of them new. If one lesson stood out, it was this: founders almost never get the valuation they walk in asking for.
Meet the 13 sharks
Only five sharks sat on the panel in each episode, picked from a pool of 13.
The familiar faces: Aman Gupta (boAt), Anupam Mittal (Shaadi.com), Namita Thapar (Emcure), Vineeta Singh (Sugar Cosmetics), Amit Jain (CarDekho), Ritesh Agarwal (OYO), Kunal Bahl (Snapdeal, Titan Capital) and Viraj Bahl.
The new sharks: Varun Alagh (Honasa Consumer, the company behind Mamaearth), Mohit Yadav (Minimalist), Shaily Mehrotra (Fixderma), Hardik Kothiya (Rayzon Solar) and Kanika Tekriwal (JetSetGo).
Aman Gupta was once again the busiest shark. A tracker that follows 69 direct-to-consumer brands from the season, d2c.fyi, counts 16 deals for him among those brands, followed by Namita Thapar with 14 and Anupam Mittal with 9.
The deals that stood out
SaveSage, a rewards and credit-card points app, walked in asking for ₹1 crore for 1% equity, which valued it at ₹100 crore. It walked out with ₹4 crore for 9%, the biggest cheque among the season’s notable deals, but at a valuation closer to ₹44 crore.
Truth & Hair, a curly-hair care brand, asked for ₹1 crore for 2.5%. It ended up giving away 25% for ₹2.5 crore, the biggest stake of the season.
Every Morning Cartel, a café brand, saw the sharpest drop. It asked for ₹5 crore at a ₹250 crore valuation and settled for ₹2 crore for 12%, which values it at under ₹17 crore.
Energy bar brand Mama Nourish and body-adhesive maker Get Snappy both took ₹2 crore for 20%. Oats by Goat got ₹2 crore for 8%. E-scooter leasing startup RIDEV got a mix: ₹1 crore for 3% plus ₹5 crore as a loan at 14.5% interest.
Kids’ learning brand Emomee raised ₹2 crore for 4%, valuing it at ₹50 crore, according to Indian Retailer. Aman Gupta summed up his view on the pitch: “Content is king, but distribution is god.”
What founders can learn from Season 5
Your valuation will be questioned. In the deals above, final valuations were anywhere from 17% to 93% lower than what founders asked for.
Money and valuation are a trade-off. Many founders accepted a lower valuation to get a bigger cheque.
Loans are on the table too. Sharks are increasingly mixing equity with debt, as RIDEV’s deal shows.
A handshake on TV is not the final deal. Every offer goes through checks after the show, and terms can change.
Planning to pitch? Read our guide to Shark Tank India Season 6 registration. For a look back, see our earlier piece on how the show changed the way Indians talk about investing.
Deal details from Wikipedia’s Season 5 records, d2c.fyi and Indian Retailer. Valuations are our calculations from the reported deal terms.
