Cakelicious

Fatima revealed that baking has always been her true passion, and she decided to turn that passion into a career alongside her mother. She holds a bachelor's degree in computer education, while Duriya serves as the head chef at the company. Fatema Barodawala and Duriya Barodawala are Season 2's most personally resilient mother-daughter founding duo Fatema starting the business while pregnant during a deteriorating marriage, working 18-hour days to deliver custom cakes to parties and celebrations, quitting her job to focus full-time, and building a Kolkata-based bakery brand with 2 lakh customers and an 80% repeat customer rate from the ground up.

Cakelicious is Kolkata's most personally-recipe-rooted bakery brand using Duriya's 90-year-old family cake recipe with no preservatives and no premixes to produce preservative-free cakes, pastries, and the signature Cake Tub innovation: individual-portion cake servings in portable tubs that transform cake from a special-occasion purchase into an everyday snack. The Cake Tub is Cakelicious's most commercially scalable product innovation converting what is typically a ₹500 to ₹5,000 whole-cake purchase (requiring a celebration context and multiple consumers) into a ₹300 individual-serving product that anyone can buy on impulse on any day without needing an occasion or multiple people to share with.

Amount Asked: ₹25 lakhs Equity Offered: 5% Implied Pre-Money Valuation: ₹5 crore

Fatema and Duriya walked into Season 2 Episode 35 as the most personally emotionally complex founding story of the episode Fatema having started the business while pregnant during a deteriorating marriage, working 18-hour days on sheer willpower, and building Cakelicious into a 2-lakh-customer brand alongside her mother. Peyush, one of the Sharks, said that the cakes were so delicious that they seemed unreal. Peyush's "cakes so delicious they seemed unreal" reaction was Season 2 Episode 35's most unambiguously enthusiastic Shark food quality endorsement a Lenskart founder calling a bakery product "unreal" communicates complete personal conviction that the product quality was exceptional.

Aman Gupta exited on self-sufficiency grounds a business generating 40% net margins with 80% repeat customers and growing monthly revenue did not need investment to survive. Namita Thapar exited on category and scale concerns pharmaceutical expertise has no specific application to a Kolkata bakery brand's expansion strategy. Peyush Bansal exited despite calling the cakes "unreal" his appreciation for the product quality was genuine, but the Kolkata-specific artisan bakery business model required a different kind of scaling expertise than Lenskart could provide. Vineeta Singh exited beauty brand expertise does not translate into bakery brand distribution and kitchen operations scaling. Amit Jain was the only Shark who saw a fundable business despite the very early revenue stage.

The owners gave a counteroffer of 25 lakhs at 15% equity, which Amit declined. He then gave a counteroffer of 25 lakhs at 20% equity plus ₹10 lakhs debt at 0% interest, which the owners accepted, and the final deal was closed. The negotiation moved from the founders' 5% opening, through their 15% counter, to Amit's 20% plus ₹10 lakh interest-free debt final offer. The 0% interest debt like Namita's Pabiben deal communicated Amit's mission-driven investment motivation rather than pure financial return optimisation. The ₹10 lakh interest-free debt is a financial gift wrapped in a repayment obligation.

Fatema Barodawala and Duriya Barodawala accepted Amit Jain's offer of ₹25 lakhs for 20% equity plus ₹10 lakhs debt at 0% interest valuing Cakelicious at ₹1.25 crore. Despite countering at 15% equity, the founders accepted 20% because Amit's CarDekho distribution expertise and marketplace experience was the most practically applicable strategic asset for the Monginis-ubiquity street-corner expansion vision. The deal was confirmed and formally closed after the episode aired.

They sell 500 cake tubs per month and have served over 2 lakh customers since their inception. Additionally, their cakes have no preservatives and no premixes. Their cakes have a shelf life of 2 weeks at -15 degrees Celsius or below. Cakelicious made ₹2 lakhs in July 2022, followed by ₹2.5 lakhs and ₹3 lakhs in August and September respectively. Their ₹300 cake costs ₹140 to make, giving them a gross profit of 60% and a net profit of 40% after expenses. Cakelicious continues operating from Kolkata the Amit Jain investment providing both capital and the CarDekho distribution marketplace expertise needed to execute the Monginis-ubiquity vision. The 500 monthly Cake Tub sales represent a meaningful repeat-purchase foundation that could scale significantly with quick commerce platform integration (Blinkit, Swiggy Instamart, Zepto) — applying the same quick commerce packaging strategy that Aman applied to Kerala Banana Chips and The Healthy Binge.