Carragreen

Surabhi Shah is the primary founder and driver of Carragreen's business strategy, product development, and manufacturing. After completing her engineering degree in information technology, she worked for a multinational company for about two years. Later, she joined her family business to gain a practical understanding of the vocation. Chetna Shah — Surabhi's mother-in-law — joined the venture approximately a year after its launch. Her mother-in-law has great expertise in the bakery business. Her networking in Indore and other states helps the business. Chetna handles customer research and product development.

Carragreen is an eco-friendly packaging and biodegradable stationery company — producing compostable alternatives to single-use plastic packaging, cutlery, and office stationery, using agricultural waste (corn husk, wheat straw) and food-grade board as raw materials. Carrabox by Carragreen is an eco-friendly box to carry food. It is a cardboard box and hence a way to minimise the use of plastics. It is an initiative to make the environment free of plastic and work towards a better, pollution-free world. The Carrabox design is patented and is the product's most distinctive feature. Carrabox is a food packaging box that breaks down, flattens, and can be torn apart to provide a plate and spoon for consuming food. It has a provisional design patent on the notion of a plate and spoon in a box. Carragreen produces biodegradable stationery and packaging solutions using agricultural waste. Carrabox is made from corn husk and wheat straw.

Amount Asked: ₹50 lakhs Equity Offered: 10% Implied Pre-Money Valuation: ₹5 crore

Surabhi and Chetna Shah — a daughter-in-law and mother-in-law pitching together — immediately charmed the Tank. The "saas-bahu" dynamic, far from being a distraction, was the pitch's most authentically Indian element: two women from different generations of the same family, united by a shared environmental conviction, building a business together. The product demonstration was clear: the Carrabox was unfolded, transformed into a plate, and the integrated spoon was extracted — showing in seconds how the packaging solved the single-use plastic problem for food delivery. The box went from container to eating set without any additional waste. The Carraspoon was highlighted as the existing best-seller — with clients like Haldiram and Balaji already ordering at volume, demonstrating that B2B market validation existed for the product category even before the Carrabox had been formally launched beyond sample stage.

All Sharks appreciated the environmental mission and the product's conceptual elegance. The concerns centred on the gap between the Carrabox vision and the current Carraspoon-only commercial reality. Ashneer Grover was intrigued but ultimately exited. Ashneer liked the concept but couldn't see scalability in the business, so he exited the negotiations. Anupam Mittal was the most commercially enthusiastic Shark about the product. He understood the vision of replacing plastic packaging at scale for India's massive food delivery ecosystem Peyush Bansal saw alignment with his personal sustainability convictions and the product's "right to win" in a category where environmental regulation was likely to tighten over time Aman Gupta exited — the sustainability packaging category was outside his consumer electronics expertise. Namita Thapar exited on category mismatch grounds.

Anupam offered ₹50 lakhs for 25%, and Peyush combined with him in the offer. Chetna and Surabhi countered with ₹50 lakhs for 12% (each, suggesting 12% split). They were re-countered with ₹50 lakhs for 20%, no less. The deal was closed and the founders were happy and hopeful. They also got a great offer from Flipkart to launch their product on its site. The negotiation moved from the founders' 10% ask to a final 20% — Anupam and Peyush halved the original valuation from ₹5 crore to ₹2.5 crore (₹50L ÷ 20%). The founders' counter of 12% was a reasonable split of the difference, but Anupam held firm at 20% and the founders accepted.

Deal Status:- Confirmed & Formally Closed Investment Amount:- ₹50 lakhs Equity Given:- 20%