Coratia Technologies

Debendra Pradhan and Biswajit Swain are Season 3's most NIT Rourkela-proudly-representing deep-tech founders. Both graduated in Mechanical Engineering in 2017 and teamed up for an unprecedented Ministry of Earth Science college challenge: building robots that could autonomously navigate underwater, use computer vision and remote sensing to avoid obstacles, and fire projectiles at targets. No government or private body had organised such an underwater robotics challenge before, and the novelty drew both engineers in. "The novelty factor drew us in. Neither the government nor any private body had organised any such challenge relating to underwater robotics before. Back then, you would rarely find research in this space even at top engineering institutes," Debendra recalled. What began as a college research project evolved into a prototype, then a startup, and ultimately India's most decorated indigenous underwater robotics company.

Coratia Technologies is India's only indigenous underwater robotics company building ROVs (Remotely Operated Vehicles) and AUVs (Autonomous Underwater Vehicles) that replace slow, expensive, and dangerous human diver inspections with automated, repeatable, data-driven underwater monitoring. The four-product portfolio covers every underwater inspection scenario: Jaladuta for civilian inland infrastructure (dams, bridges, pipelines at 150m depth), Jalasimha for deep-water military and industrial use (300m depth with robotic arm and NDT capability), Oceanus for flexible modular deployments (customisable payloads for specific mission requirements), and Navya for surface-level autonomous surveying (river beds, lake beds, ocean terrains without human operators).

Amount Asked: ₹80 lakhs Equity Offered: 1% Implied Pre-Money Valuation: ₹80 crore

Debendra and Biswajit walked into Season 3 Episode 43 with the most technologically complex deep-tech hardware pitch of the bonus episodes. They presented their underwater robots, demonstrated the inspection capabilities through video footage, and explained how India's critical underwater infrastructure (bridges, dams, pipelines, ports, naval assets, undersea cables) was inspected using expensive imported equipment or dangerous human divers because no Indian company built underwater robotics. The defence application immediately captured attention: India's naval sovereignty requires indigenous underwater surveillance and inspection capability that cannot depend on foreign suppliers (who may restrict access during geopolitical tensions). Coratia's Make in India underwater robots directly address this strategic autonomy requirement.

Aman Gupta exited because he could not connect with the business at a fundamental level. The underwater robotics defence-tech category sat entirely outside his consumer electronics comfort zone. Vineeta Singh exited on domain expertise grounds. Beauty brand marketing expertise provides no strategic value for an underwater robotics defence-tech company. Namita Thapar exited because the deep-tech hardware development cycle and defence procurement timelines were too long for her pharmaceutical healthcare investment framework. Anupam Mittal exited on similar grounds. The capital-intensive, long-cycle nature of deep-tech robotics development did not match his consumer platform investment methodology. Ritesh Agarwal was the sole investor. He saw the OYO-like parallel: scaling a technology solution across distributed deployments (hotels for OYO, underwater inspection sites for Coratia) required the same operational scaling methodology. His investment matched the founders' exact ask of ₹80 lakhs for 1% equity.

The founders asked ₹80 lakhs for 1% equity (₹80 crore valuation). Four Sharks exited. Ritesh offered ₹80 lakhs for 1% equity at ₹8 crore valuation. The Bizfoc source notes the valuation at ₹8 crore (a significant markdown from the ₹80 crore ask), but the deal matched the exact capital and equity terms the founders requested. The founders accepted without further negotiation, securing their full investment ask from the Shark whose distributed-deployment scaling expertise was most directly applicable.

Debendra Pradhan and Biswajit Swain accepted Ritesh Agarwal's offer of ₹80 lakhs for 1% equity, valuing Coratia Technologies at ₹8 crore. Ritesh's OYO experience in scaling technology deployments across thousands of distributed locations was the most strategically relevant Shark capability for an underwater robotics company that needs to deploy robots across ports, dams, bridges, naval bases, and industrial facilities nationwide and eventually globally.

Coratia Technologies' post-Shark Tank trajectory is Season 3's most dramatically defence-strategically significant growth story. The company raised ₹22 crore in total capital: ₹17 crore from MGF Kavachh and Pontaq Ventures (July 2025, supporting India's strategic autonomy in underwater robotics), and ₹5 crore from Piper Serica Angel Fund (November 2025, accelerating adoption of underwater robotics). Piper Serica's Ajay Modi stated: "We're proud to back Coratia as it redefines underwater robotics and accelerates India's rise as a technology powerhouse by 2030." The landmark achievement: a ₹66 crore contract from the Indian Navy under the Ministry of Defence's iDEX (Innovations for Defence Excellence) scheme. This is Season 3's most commercially valuable post-Shark Tank deal of any startup, confirming that India's naval defence establishment trusts Coratia's indigenous robots for national security applications.