HomeShark Tank IndiaWhat Happened to Qzense Labs after Shark Tank

What Happened to Qzense Labs after Shark Tank

Started by two friends Ruhal Chib and Dr. Srishti Batra in 2019, Qzense Labs is in the business of helping reduce food wastage. The founders pitched the company in the third episode of Season one of Indian Shark Tank. While the sharks were clearly impressed by the technological prowess of the product, none of them made offers except Vineeta Singh. 

In this piece, I will walk you through what exactly is Qzense Labs, the Qzense Labs Shark Tank Pitch, and share updates on what happened with Qzense Labs after their Shark Tank Appearance.

Qzense Labs Shark Tank Pitch & Deal

When the two founders entered the Shark Tank room, they started by establishing the problem of how difficult it is to determine whether a fruit is rotten or not from the inside by just looking at it. And because of this single difficulty, Rs 92,000 worth of food gets spoilt in India. 

In order to solve this problem and help farmers and sellers, the founders have come up with a patented rotten fruit detection device called Q scan. This device can help anyone determine if the fruit is rotten from the inside or not with a 95% accuracy rate. 

The vision of Qzense labs is to reduce unnecessary food wastage in the country and they were seeking 1 crore for 0.25% of the company, meaning their company would be valued at Rs 400 crores.

After seeing how the device works, Anupam asked the two founders to explain how they came up with the idea for the business. The founders explained that one of them is an electrical engineering graduate who has developed several IOT products & the other has a doctorate in computational biology, specifically studying food data. Seeing that food wastage was such a huge problem, both of them decided to team up and launch Qzense Labs.

When Aman asked if consumers were actually using their product, the founders informed him that they were currently selling it to retailers, wholesalers, and exporters. Namita wanted to understand if this problem has been solved elsewhere. In response, the founders informed that while similar technologies exist, there is no solution and they also added intelligence to it. 

The founders also informed that they sell the fruit detection device for around 45k-50k, and annual maintenance for it separately. On learning that the company had only sold products worth 15 lakhs in a year until now, the Sharks were astounded given that a valuation of Rs 400 crore was put forward earlier. 

Qzense Labs had raised two rounders until the Shark Tank appearance. The pre-seed round of Rs 1.8 crore and another round of Rs 5 crore was raised at a Rs 24 crore valuation. On learning that the founders were desiring an increase of valuation to Rs 400 crore despite minimal sales, Sharks were even more astounded. 

Anupam immediately said he is out and also expressed his disagreement with the valuation. Aman, Namita, and Ashneer also informed that they are out due to the same reasons. However, Vineeta asked for sales projections and the founders informed that they were expecting sales of Rs 5 crore this year and Rs 20 crore next year. 

On hearing this, Vineeta offered Rs 1 crore for 5% of the company, meaning the company would be valued at Rs 20 crores. The founders countered with an offer of Rs 1 crore for 0.5%. However, Vineeta refused to go ahead with it and the Qzense Labs left the Shark tank room without a deal.

What Happened to Qzense Labs after Shark Tank ( Qzense Labs Shark Tank Update )

One year after the Shark Tank pitch, despite not getting backing from sharks, Qzense Labs seems to be doing pretty well for itself basis what I could gather about it from the web. 

As per the company’s website, it is backed by accelerators and investors like jiogennext, ISB, SOSV, and 9unicorns

In the last quarter of 2022, the company received a patent for the use of the novel technology of artificial olfaction in the fresh food supply chain. Apart from this, Qzense Labs also won an Innovation challenge on ‘developing a prototype for quality assessment of farm products in the value chain’ at the #NABARD-ONDC Hackathon

As far as news coverage is concerned, the company made it to the ‘Forbes Asia 100 To Watch’ list in August 2021. 

Since its Shark tank appearance, the company also seems to have expanded the use cases it covers, which includes segments like growers, wholesalers, exporters, cloud kitchens, retailers, and cold chains. 

Watch the Episode below to see the Qzense Labs pitch Yourself:

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What Happened to Qzense Labs after Shark Tank
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What Happened to Qzense Labs after Shark Tank
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One year after the Shark Tank pitch, despite not getting backing from sharks, Qzense Labs seems to be doing pretty well for itself basis what I could gather about it from the web. As per the company’s website, it is backed by accelerators and investors like jiogennext, ISB, SOSV, and 9unicorns.
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Muaaz Qadri
Muaaz Qadri
A Proud Computer Engineer turned Digital Marketer