Foodtech major Zomato cofounder and chief executive officer (CEO) Deepinder Goyal has joined TV show Shark Tank India as its newest shark for the upcoming season.
“The sharks kickstart the third shoot schedule! Welcoming the new shark @deepigoyal, founder and CEO of Zomato!…,” the show’s official handle said in a post on X (formerly Twitter).
This comes a week after OYO cofounder and CEO Ritesh Agarwal was onboarded as a shark for the Season 3 of the show on Sony Entertainment Television. Besides, the upcoming edition will see the presence of usual suspects – Peyush Bansal of Lenskart, People Group’s Anupam Mittal, Namita Thapar of Emcure, Sugar Cosmetics’ Vineeta Singh, Aman Gupta of boAt and CarDekho Group’s Amit Jain.
Commenting on the announcement, Goyal said he has joined the show to step outside his comfort zone and to learn from the experience.
“All growth comes from discomfort. I am here to learn, step outside my comfort zone, and add my two special cents to something crazy. This is turning out to be a weekend well spent outside of @zomato,” said Goyal on X.
The Indian format of the show features entrepreneurs pitching their ideas and businesses to the sharks in lieu of investments and mentorship.
Over the weekend, the celebrity founders kick started the third schedule of their shoot for the season. So far, there is no clarity on when the show will be aired.
Goyal has been an active angel investor and has infused capital in multiple big-ticket startups such as craft beer maker Bira91, SaaS platform HyperTrack, logistics major Shiprocket, healthtech startup Allo Health, enterprisetech platform Threado, among others. As per Tracxn, Goyal has participated in the investment rounds of 18 startups.
Speaking about his investment thesis last year, the Zomato CEO said his private investments are largely centred around bringing learnings from those startups to Zomato to transform the foodtech major for the better,
“What I learn from those founders is ROI enough to me. Any money that gets returned is an icing on the cake, and I recycle it towards more learning, thus creating even more value for Zomato’s shareholders (including me),” Goyal said in his blog last year.
On the other hand, Goyal has spearheaded the operations of Zomato for more than 15 years now and led the company from just a menu restaurant recommendation portal to a listed foodtech juggernaut.
After a largely painful 2022, the company has bounced back strongly this year and even clocked its first ever profitable quarter in Q1 FY24 with a net profit of INR 2 Cr. This has set in motion a rally in the stock prices of Zomato. Shares of Zomato are up over 75% year to date.
Earlier this year, Inc42 reported a bevy of issues with Shark Tank India as some participants alleged that many sharks deliberately withheld investments under various pretexts.
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