Annie, Thinkerbell Labs Private Limited

The first contours of Annie's design took shape in the 2010s at the Goa campus of the Birla Institute of Technology and Science Pilani, when Dawle and co-founders Aman Srivastava, Dilip Ramesh, and Saif Shaikh built a Braille alphabet song box on a Raspberry Pi. They received overwhelmingly positive feedback and enthusiasm from visually impaired students and their teachers alike. Sanskriti Dawle (CEO) is the public face and mission leader of Thinkerbell Labs. The name "Annie" pays tribute to Anne Sullivan, the dedicated teacher of Helen Keller, symbolising empowerment through education. Aman Srivastava handles product strategy; Dilip Ramesh leads technology and hardware engineering as CTO; Saif Shaikh manages operations. The four-person founding team brings complementary engineering disciplines — hardware, software, manufacturing, and business — that a complex hardware-software integrated product like Annie requires.

Annie is the world's first self-learning Braille literacy device — a hardware-software integrated educational tool that enables visually impaired children to learn to read, write, and type in Braille independently, without requiring constant one-on-one supervision from a trained Braille teacher, in their mother tongue. Annie is the world's first Braille literacy device that helps visually impaired people learn to read, write, and type in Braille on their own in any medium of instruction. The content on Annie is available in 14 localised languages. Autodesk This multilingual design — covering English, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, and regional Indian languages alongside Arabic — made Annie deployable not just across India but across the Middle East and South Asia.

Amount Asked: ₹30 lakhs Equity Offered: 0.5% Implied Pre-Money Valuation: ₹60 crore

The Annie pitch was the first of Episode 13 and immediately distinguished itself as one of the most moving and technically substantive pitches of Season 1. The founders opened with the data — 20 lakh visually impaired children in India, a global Braille literacy rate of 10%, a shortage of qualified teachers so severe that each visually impaired student gets approximately 5 minutes of learning time per class — and then brought in Prathamesh Sinha, their 10-year-old brand ambassador, to demonstrate the device live in the Tank. A very cool, smart, and 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." The funniest part was when he was asked by one of the Sharks if he is a shareholder in Annie, to which he smartly answered that he is the brand ambassador.

All five Sharks were visibly moved by the pitch — by Prathamesh's demonstration, by the founders' depth of commitment, and by the sheer scale of the unaddressed problem. Namita Thapar was immediately aligned — her pharmaceutical and healthcare background, combined with her passion for women in entrepreneurship (Sanskriti Dawle as a female founder of a deeptech company) and her understanding of the education-health intersection, made Annie a natural investment. Anupam Mittal connected deeply with the social impact mission and the technology elegance of the solution. Peyush Bansal — through Lenskart's vision-related mission — found direct personal alignment with a product that addresses visual impairment. Aman Gupta was deeply affected by Prathamesh's demonstration but ultimately did not invest — the category was outside his consumer electronics expertise. Ashneer Grover also did not invest, citing category mismatch with his fintech expertise.

The negotiation produced one of Season 1's most dramatic equity movements — from the founders' 0.5% ask to a final deal at 3%. The three interested Sharks — Namita, Anupam, and Peyush — initially offered ₹30 lakhs for a combined stake that was significantly higher than 0.5%. The result was ₹1.05 crore for 3% equity — one of the biggest investments of Season 1 The final deal structure reflects the Sharks' willingness to invest more capital than requested (₹1.05 crore vs ₹30 lakhs) in exchange for a larger equity stake (3% vs 0.5%). For a company with existing institutional investors and a ₹60 crore valuation implied by their ask, accepting 3% equity on ₹1.05 crore (implying ₹35 crore post-money valuation) was a significant markdown.

Deal Status:- Confirmed & Formally Closed Investment Amount:- ₹1.05 crore Equity Given3%