Shark Tank India Episode 13: Annie – An iPhone Moment in the field of Braille Literacy

Thinker Bell Labs came up with their product Annie in Shark Tank. Annie is world’s first Braille self-learning device. The co-founders are Sanskritia Dawle, Aman Srivastva, Dilip Ramesh and Saif Shaikh. Their presentation was very much backed up by the data.  

How did the Idea Conceptualize?

As explained, there are more than 20 lakh visually impaired kids in India with low literacy rate. Even in the developed countries, literacy rate for visually impaired kids is around 10% only. As per WHO, 1 in 1000 visually impaired kid needs a product like Annie.

Low literacy rate of visually impaired kids is a global issue and Thinker Bell Labs has come with an excellent product Annie  to resolve it.  We would like to mention it again that Annie is world’s first self-learning, remote-enabled Braille literacy device. It helps kids learn the braille by speaking in their mother-tongue. It is integrated with their product Hilios through which the progress of the child can be tracked and new learning content can be downloaded.  This also enables the children to learn in schools.  Annie can be used by the kids of age 4-15.

Prathamesh Sinha – The Cutest Product Demo on Shark Tank India

A very cool, smart and a cute 10 year old kid Prathamesh Sinha from Pune gave the demo to the sharks. He very well explained the usage of the device, its keys and the learning method.  He won the hearts of the sharks with his ultra intelligence and answers. The best part was when he said “I’ll manage”. And the funniest part was the one , when he was asked by one of the shark if he is a share holder in Annie, he smartly answered that he is the brand ambassador 😊.  This kiddo is  a huge fan of Aman Gupta but after his demonstration, Aman Gupta became his huge fan.

Shark Tank India Episode 13: The Vision of Co-Founders

Coming to the vision of the co-founders, their vision is to take Annie globally and to create a revolution in the field of education for special need kids. They have also signed a 3 year contractor with one of the biggest American distributor for around $ 1.7 million. Annie is backed by investors like Anand Mahindra, Raman Roy, IAN and LV.  

Each device costs around $1000 which is approx. Rs 70,000 with approx. 50% of profit. Their projected sales for FY 2021-22 is 5 crores and the next year vision is above 20 crores.

The company valuation is Rs 60 crores.  To take Annie to next stage , they need strategic investors and they offered 0.5% equity for Rs 30 lakhs.  Peeyush Bansal gave a counter offer of Rs 1 crore with 5 % equity and even offered to make it available on all Lenskart stores.  Namita offered for Rs 30 lakhs for 0.75% equity as she could be able to bring it in many countries. Anupam Mittal offered for Rs 30 lakhs at 1%.The counter offered by Team Annie was 1 crore for 2.5% equity.  The deal finally closed at Rs 1.05 crores for 3 % equity with 3 sharks coming together Anupam, Namita and Peeyush.

What a brilliant product and what a brilliant episode, well done team Annie and Shark Tank India!