Tagz Foods

Anish Basu Roy is the Co-founder and CEO of Tagz Foods. He holds an engineering degree and has over 13 years of experience in the food and beverage sector, having worked in sales and marketing roles at Nokia, Coca-Cola, and HealthifyMe across Asia. Before Tagz, he founded Shotang — a B2B e-commerce platform — and took an 18-month break after that venture before returning to the consumer brand space with a clear thesis. Sagar Bhalotia is the Co-founder and brings complementary expertise in product and business development. He has a B.Tech background and prior experience at Quikr, OYO, and HealthifyMe. Together, Anish and Sagar represented a seasoned founding duo — both ex-FMCG and consumer tech professionals who had seen India's snacking market from the inside and were convinced it was ripe for disruption.

Tagz Foods is India's first and only brand making popped potato chips — a completely new snacking category positioned between fried chips (unhealthy, tasty) and baked chips (less fat, usually bland). The brand's product line at the time of the pitch included 6 flavours of popped potato chips and 4 varieties of dips, with future plans to launch cookies and dark chocolate products.Unlike frying (which immerses the chip in oil) or baking (which uses dry heat), Tagz uses a proprietary high-temperature, high-pressure popping process. This physically expands the chip without requiring any frying oil, resulting in a product with 50% less fat, no cholesterol, no trans fat, no artificial preservatives, no palm oil, and no artificial flavours — marketed under the memorable tagline: "Never Fried, Never Baked."

Amount asked for 75 laks for 10% of equity

Anish and Sagar delivered one of the most energy-packed and product-confident pitches of the entire first season. Their opening framing was sharp and provocative: they walked in challenging India's entire snacking culture — asking the Sharks why the country's consumers should be forced to choose between fatty fried chips and boring baked alternatives.They served samples of their chips alongside their proprietary international-style dipping sauces to all five Sharks. The taste reaction was unanimously positive — even from the Sharks who ultimately did not invest. This is a critical detail: Tagz was one of the few pitches in Season 1 where the product quality was not in question. The entire debate was about valuation and scalability, never about whether the chips were good.

"Ashneer Grover :Challenged the offline distribution gap aggressively. Drew comparisons to Virat Kohli's Too Yumm brand. Made a solo offer at a lower equity than Aman+Namita, which ultimately won the deal. Believed in the product's technology moat and the founders' FMCG pedigree. Namita Thapar:- Teamed with Aman during on-show negotiations for a 4% joint offer. On-screen she did not close, but Business Today later reported she wrote a cheque for an undisclosed amount after the show aired. Clearly believed in the brand's potential. Aman Gupta:- Teamed with Namita for a combined offer of 4% equity. Asked about their biggest challenge — the founders cited defending gross margins. Aman engaged deeply but couldn't match Ashneer's solo offer terms. Eventually did not close the on-show deal. Vineeta Singh;- Praised the product quality and packaging extensively but exited because she didn't align with the direct-to-consumer vision. Felt the path to retail scale wasn't clear enough to justify.

Ashneer's solo offer at 2.75% was better for the founders than the Aman+Namita offer at 3% — not just because of the lower dilution, but because a single investor means a single decision-maker. Fewer board voices, faster decisions, cleaner governance. The founders made a strategically sound choice by prioritising simplicity of partnership over the potential diversity of expertise from two investors. Of course, Namita then invested post-show anyway — giving them both."

"Investment Amount ₹70 lakhs Equity Given (On-Show) 2.75%"