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Meet Kunal Bahl, new Judge of Shark Tank India

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Kunal Bahl, the co-founder of Snapdeal and Titan Capital, has joined the panel for season 4 of Shark Tank India, replacing Deepinder Goyal, the founder and CEO of Zomato. He will join the existing panel of Sharks, including Anupam Mittal, founder and CEO of the People Group; Aman Gupta, co-founder and CEO of boAt Lifestyle; Namita Thapar, executive director at Emcure Pharmaceuticals Limited; and Ritesh Agarwal, the founder and group CEO of OYO. Kunal Bahl has founded and grown numerous technology ventures and has invested in over 250 startups. Let’s delve into the life of Kunal Bahl, the newest shark.

Kunal Bahl was born in India and completed his education at Delhi Public School R.K. Puram in New Delhi. He was later accepted at the University of Pennsylvania, where he pursued the Jerome Fisher Program in Management and Technology, and earned two bachelor’s degrees in Entrepreneurship, Operations, and Information Technology. Additionally, he completed an executive marketing program at the Kellogg School of Management.

Kunal Bahl co-founded Snapdeal, an e-commerce company, in 2010. Later, in 2022, they assumed the group corporate identity of AceVector. AceVector Limited became the holding company for Snapdeal, Unicommerce, and Stellaro brands. Additionally, he co-founded Titan Capital, a prominent early-stage venture capital firm in India that invests the personal funds of Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal. Through Titan Capital, he has invested in over 250 startups across various sectors including consumer tech, health tech, fin-tech, SaaS, consumer brands, and B2B services. Some of the companies he has invested in are Ola Cabs, Urban Company, Razorpay, Ofbusiness, and Mamaearth, among others.

He is a promoter of Unicommerce, a leading SaaS company in India that had a successful year. The company was named one of the most highly subscribed IPOs of 2024. Additionally, he was appointed as the chairman of the Confederation of Indian Industry Startup Committee. He has also been a member of the Executive Council at NASSCOM, the National Startup Advisory Council, and the Board of Governors of the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations.

He has also been appointed as an Independent Director on the Board of Piramal Enterprises, an Indian conglomerate.

Before becoming a shark, Kunal Bahl appeared on the Prime Video series “Mission Start Ab,” where ten innovators compete for mentorship and funding. Bahl’s entrepreneurial journey includes building and scaling technology ventures, and he has invested in over 250 startups. Although the makers have not announced the premiere date for the new season, Bahl’s unique insights and expertise will be a valuable addition to the show.

Robert Herjavec

Robert Herjavec: From a poor immigrant to a millionaire ‘shark’

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Robert Herjavec is a Croatian-Canadian entrepreneur, investor, and TV personality.

About

Herjavec developed the Canadian Internet security software integrator BRAK Systems, which he later sold to AT&T Canada (now Allstream) for $30.2 million. He established The Herjavec Group in 2003, which currently has over $200 million in yearly revenue and is one of Canada’s leading IT and computer security organizations.

Robert Herjavec
Image Source: inc.com

He has appeared in episodes of the CBC Television program Dragons’ Den and the ABC program Shark Tank, in which he is an investor. He has published books on how to succeed in business as well.

Early Life

Robert Herjavec was born in Croatia in 1962. The nation was then a part of Yugoslavia, a socialist one-party state ruled by Communists. Herjavec’s father was a strong and courageous man who was determined to speak forth against the ruling system and its unjust form of government.

Unsurprisingly, his father’s outspoken opposition to communism frequently resulted in imprisonment. And his father eventually had enough after being arrested over 22 times. He so managed to get away from his captors and left the nation with his family. The family of Robert Herjavec moved to Canada for just $20, but his father ultimately got a job in a factory.

Although it wasn’t much, there was just enough money to support a family. Herjavec was only 8 years old at the time, but the authoritarianism back at home, as well as the poor economic circumstances and the pessimism that his father railed against, had a profound effect on his mental makeup.

Herjavec, who grew up close to poverty, decided to make improvements to his family’s and his own lives at the age of 14. He finally find his way to college and graduated from the University of Toronto with degrees in political science and English literature, and then entered the professional world with a heart full of ambition and a head full of optimism.

Success Story

He created BRAK Systems, a corporation that specialized in security integration, after becoming familiar with the ins and outs of the computer industry. Herjavec’s company flourished quickly becoming one of the leading security integration businesses in North America.

And luckily for Herjavec, AT&T was interested in purchasing his business, which he quickly sold for $20 million. Following that, Herjavec landed an executive role with a corporation called RAMP Networks. He grew the business as the VP of Sales for one of the initial VPN technology providers, which Nokia eventually purchased for $225 million.

Later he founded the Herjavec Group. Similar to his earlier business, he quickly expanded this one into a major force in the IT sector. His company, which is now renowned as Cyderes and is among the biggest in Canada for cyber security, merged with Fishtech Group.

He attracted the attention of a writer for the National Post when he stated that he had paid more than $10 million for a property in the early 2000s. And it was because of this media coverage and publication that he eventually attracted the attention necessary to get a role on Dragon’s Den, a predecessor to Shark Tank in Canada.

Before entirely ending his tenure with The Dragon’s Den in 2009, he also negotiated a deal with ABC’s Shark Tank. The rest is history, as they say. Since then, he has been a constant part of the program, and he has continued to gain fame and recognition.

Herjavec was given the 2012 Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal by the Governor-General of Canada for Outstanding Service to Canada as well as the 2012 Ernst & Young Ontario Entrepreneur of the Year Award for Technology.

Kevin O’Leary

Kevin O’Leary: Success Story of Dyslexic Kid becoming Billionaire

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Kevin O’Leary, also known as “Mr. Wonderful,” is a Canadian entrepreneur, businessman, and television personality. O’Leary was a co-founder of SoftKey Software Products, a tech business that offered software for family entertainment and education. 

Kevin O'Leary
Image Source: techstory.in

Early Life

In 1954, Kevin O’Leary was born into a middle-class household. His mother was a skilled investor. Most of Kevin’s business insight comes from his mother. She gave him important financial and economic lessons at a young age. These ideas were Kevin’s guiding principles and the cornerstones on which he eventually construct his empire.

Kevin O’Leary experienced additional difficulties in school when he was growing up due to dyslexia. When O’Leary was a student at St. George’s School, his dyslexia started to hinder his academic performance. He had trouble reading and doing simple addition and multiplication problems.

He had to use supplemental tools to keep up with the learning content because his teachers did not assist him as they were unaware of his dyslexia. While pursuing MBA, O’Leary interned for Nabisco. O’Leary started a short-lived stint as a TV producer after leaving Nabisco. He co-founded Special Event Television(SET) with two of his fellow MBA classmates.

SET produced original sports programs as a freelance television production firm. With small television programs, soccer movies, sports documentaries, and quick intermission ads for nearby professional hockey games, the company had only little success. Later, for $25,000, one of the partners bought out Kevin’s portion of the business.

Success Story

In 1986, O’Leary established Softkey in a Toronto basement with partners Gary Babcock and John Freeman.SoftKey made hostile takeover approaches to buy competing businesses in the late 1980s and early 1990s, including Compton’s New Media, The Learning Company, and Broderbund. Later, SoftKey changed its name to The Learning Company.

Softkey’s well-known position in the software sector finally aided “Mr. Wonderful” in becoming a millionaire. In 1999, Mattel recognized the software company’s absolute supremacy in the market and decided to acquire Softkey for an astounding $4.2 billion. 

In 2003 he joined “StorageNow Holdings,” a company that builds climate-controlled storage facilities, as a Director and co-investor. In 2007, the company was acquired by InStorage REIT for a staggering $110 million. O’Leary sold his shares in the company, which had a starting value of $500,000, for close to $4.5 million.

After experiencing incredible success at his software firm, Kevin began appearing on television. He soon established himself as a popular host and personality on a variety of programs, including CBC’s Dragons’ Den and Shark Tank.

Later he took control of his capital from his unreliable money managers and established his own mutual fund business, O’Leary Funds. Since then, Kevin has established O’Leary Fine Wines and a best-selling financial literacy book series.

In 2014, Kevin established the O’Leary Financial Group, a collection of companies and products that adhere to his core values of transparency, simplicity, convenience, and, excellent value.

Kevin O’Leary is a passionate supporter of environmental rights and makes an effort to invest in companies that share his views. He even co-hosts Project Earth on the Discovery Channel, a program dedicated to combating global warming. O’Leary also ran for the position of Canadian Conservative Party leader in 2017. Despite being in the lead, he withdrew one month prior to the election in April.