Nawgati

The Nawgati founding team built their platform around a specific commercial insight: India has over 80,000 fuel stations, and the relationship between the fuel station and its customers is entirely unoptimised customers queue without knowing wait times, stations have no visibility into approaching customer vehicles, and both sides lose value from the inefficiency. They were working with Indraprastha Gas and Indian Oil at the time of the pitch and were planning to work with 13 other companies.

Nawgati showcased a platform and mobile application facilitating fuel stations in scheduling customer appointments, effectively reducing pump waiting times. The Nawgati fuelling app gives information to consumers about the nearest fuel stations. The Aaveg Dashboard provides real-time key metrics for efficiency and safety through a subscription model to the gas stations. It also offers station owners precise information about their clientele's vehicles, including vehicle numbers and CNG kit licence renewals. Nawgati is a two-sided fuel station technology platform: on the consumer side, the Nawgati app shows real-time fuel station availability, wait times, and locations, allowing drivers to plan fuel stops and avoid queues; on the fuel station side, the Aaveg Dashboard provides real-time operational metrics

Amount Asked: ₹67 lakhs Equity Offered: 2% Implied Pre-Money Valuation: ₹33.5 crore

The Nawgati team walked into Season 2 Episode 38 with India's most automotive-experience-relevant pitch for the Shark panel every Shark drives a car, every Shark has experienced the frustration of hunting for a CNG station in Delhi's traffic or queuing at a fuel pump during peak hours. The pitch not only gets an amazing deal on the show but also impresses most of the sharks since every one of them travels through cars. The dual-product pitch structure was clearly presented: the Nawgati consumer app (for drivers) and the Aaveg Dashboard (for fuel stations). This two-sided marketplace model common in successful platform businesses creates a network effect where more station subscriptions improve the consumer app's usefulness, and more consumer app users increase the value proposition for station subscriptions.

Namita Thapar exited citing domain expertise mismatch fuel station technology sits entirely outside her pharmaceutical healthcare focus, and she could add no specific strategic value to a B2B SaaS company serving fuel distribution networks. Vineeta Singh exited on similar grounds SUGAR Cosmetics' beauty D2C expertise is entirely disconnected from fuel station operational intelligence software. Anupam Mittal exited citing concerns about the pace of revenue growth ₹4 lakh in September 2022 with ₹6 lakh monthly burn meant the company was burning more than it was earning, and the path to ₹2.5 crore projected annual revenue required aggressive scale-up that he was not confident the team could achieve at the required pace. Peyush Bansal exited on category expertise grounds fuel station management software is far from Lenskart's optical retail consumer business, and Peyush felt he could not add specific strategic value beyond the capital. Aman Gupta was commercially drawn to the automotive adjacency boAt's consumer electronics expansion into automotive accessories and the company's brand positioning with driving-age Indian consumers made Nawgati a logical investment. Amit Jain was the most strategically aligned Shark CarDekho's automotive marketplace and the broader automotive services ecosystem made Nawgati a natural portfolio fit.

Aman and Amit offered ₹67 lakhs for 4% equity (₹16.75 crore valuation). The founders countered at ₹67 lakhs for 2.5% equity (₹26.8 crore valuation). Aman and Amit revised to ₹67 lakhs for 3% equity (₹22.33 crore valuation). The founders accepted this revised offer.

The Nawgati team accepted Aman Gupta and Amit Jain's joint offer of ₹67 lakhs for 3% equity at ₹22.33 crore valuation. The founders successfully negotiated up from the Sharks' opening 4% equity to 3% improving their implied valuation from ₹16.75 crore to ₹22.33 crore. The deal combined Aman's consumer brand and marketing expertise with Amit's deep automotive marketplace industry knowledge and CarDekho's existing relationships with fuel companies and automotive service providers.

Nawgati continues to build its fuel station technology platform. The company was working with Indraprastha Gas and IndianOil at the time of the pitch and was planning to work with 13 other companies. Their Aaveg Dashboard B2B subscription product and the consumer-facing Nawgati fuelling app continue to be the two pillars of their revenue model.