Is Annie/Thinkerbell out of business after Shark Tank India?

• Entrepreneurs: Sanskriti Dawle, Aman Srivastava, Dilip Ramesh, and Saif Shaikh
• Business: Education
• Ask: ₹30 lakh for 0.5%
• Result: Rs 1.05 crore for 3% equity plus mentorship
• Sharks: Namita Thapar

Shark Tank Pitch:

Thinkerbell Labs is a Bengaluru-based startup that offers a self-learning device for visually impaired children to learn braille. The device, named Annie, is an electronic box that has modules for reading, writing, and typing in braille. It also has a voice tutor that teaches children how to use braille in their mother tongue, and provides lessons, stories, and games. Annie is powered by a learning ecosystem called Helios, which allows teachers and parents to track the progress of the children and download new content.

The team pitched their product on Shark Tank India, asking for Rs 30 lakh for 0.5% equity, valuing their company at Rs 60 crore. They also brought their brand ambassador Pratham Sinha, a visually impaired student who demonstrated how Annie works and how it helped him during the pandemic.

Shark Tank Negotiations:-

Sharks praised the team for their passion and vision. However, they had some questions about the market size, the price point, the revenue model, and the funding history of the company.

The team answered the questions confidently and revealed that they had already raised Rs 10 crore from investors like Anand Mahindra and Kris Gopalakrishnan. They also said that they had sold over 500 units of Annie in India and abroad, and expected to generate Rs 2 crore in revenue this year. They also explained that they were targeting mainstream schools as well as special schools for their product, and that they were planning to expand to other languages and regions.

After some negotiation, three sharks made an offer to invest in Thinkerbell Labs: Anupam Mittal offered Rs 1 crore for 3% equity, Namita Thapar offered Rs 1.05 crore for 3% equity plus mentorship, and Peyush Bansal offered Rs 1.05 crore for 3% equity plus distribution support. The team accepted the offer from Namita Thapar, who said she was moved by their story and wanted to help them scale up their business.

Thinkerbell Labs became one of the few startups on Shark Tank India to receive more than Rs 1 crore from the sharks. They also received a lot of praise and appreciation from the viewers and the media for their innovative product and their noble mission.

How is Thinkerbell doing now?

various government agencies, NGOs, and schools. They have also received funding and recognition from prominent investors and personalities, such as Anand Mahindra, Kris Gopalakrishnan, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi²¹³. They recently appeared on Shark Tank India, where they secured an investment of Rs 1.05 crore from Namita Thapar for 3% equity². They are also part of the Google for Startups Sales Academy, where they are learning how to scale up their business². They have a vision to improve the literacy rate of visually impaired children in India and around the world.

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Image source: Thinkerlabs Instagram

Here are other companies from Season 1 Episode 13.