Shark Tank India: Anupam Mittal opens up on Ashneer Grover’s ‘hurtful’ comments, misunderstandings with Aman Gupta

One of highlights of Shark Tank India was the banter between the sharks, which sometimes were in good humour, and sometimes led to misunderstandings. In an interview, Anupam Mittal (founder and CEO of People Group and Shaadi.com) opened up about not seeing eye-to-eye with his co-sharks but never holding grudges against them.

Talking about Ashneer Grover (co-founder and managing director of BharatPe) in an interview, Anupam said his straightforwardness sometimes resulted in hurtful comments. However, things would go back to normal the very next day.

Speaking with Siddharth Kannan, Anupam talked about exchanges on the show which affected him, even if for a brief while: “I think 2-3 baar ho chuka hai. Woh toh hoga hi, itne mahine aap kaam karoge saath mein. Jo interpersonal interactions hote hai, thoda friction toh aata hi hai. (I think that’s happened 2-3 times but it’s bound to happen if you work together for so many months. Sometimes there’s friction during interactions).”

About his encounters with Ashneer, Anupam said: “I think Ashneer jo hai, apni dil ki baat ekdam samne bol dete hai. Woh ek do baar raise batein bol gaya ki thes pahuchi. Kya batein huyi, kaise thes pahuchi, woh chhoro. Lekin usme koi badi baat nahi hai. Samne se woh agle din aaye khud hi. Baithe, hum saath mein lunch kiye. Baat khatam (I think Ashneer is someone who speaks his mind. Once or twice he’s said some stuff that was hurtful. But it’s no big deal. He only reached out to me the next day, we sat together, had lunch. That was the end of it).”

Talking about Aman Gupta (co-founder and chief marketing officer at boAt), Anupam added: “Phir ek do baar Aman ke saath ho gaya ki unko laga ki main unko kaat raha hun. Maine kaha ‘achha hua ki tumne bata diya, mujhe lag raha that tum mereko kaat rahe ho’. Usne kaha ‘aap mere se naraaz ho? Maine kaha nahi toh tum mere se naraz ho. Toh hum gale mil liye. Khatam ho gayi baat. Saath mein khana khaye, drink piye, baat khatam. (Once or twice it so happened that Aman felt I was interrupting him. I told him ‘good that you told me, I thought you were interrupting me.’ Once he asked me if I was upset with him and I told him that I thought he was upset with me. Then we shared a hug and the matter ended there. We sat together, shared drinks, had food.”

Anupam said he had altercations with Ghazal Alagh (co-founder of Mamaearth) also once or twice: “Ek hi baar Ghazal ke saath nok jhok ho gayi Shark Tank par. Wahi ke wahi resolve ho gayi (Once I had a tiff with Ghazal also but that was resolved then and there).”

Also read: Shark Tank India’s Anupam Mittal calls himself ‘faltu aadmi’ for featuring in all episodes: ‘Do what you can’

Other sharks on the show include  Peyush Bansal (Lenskart co-founder and CEO), Namita Thapar (executive director of Emcure Pharmaceuticals) and Vineeta Singh (CEO and co-founder of SUGAR Cosmetics). The show, which gained massive popularity in India, wrapped last week. On Shark Tank India, the business honchos or the titular ‘sharks’ appeared as potential investors, who heard out ideas from upcoming entrepreneurs.