Shark Tank India: How a start-up in Kashmir is inspiring thousands

A start-up from Indian-administered Kashmir has raised funds for reality show Shark Tank India, raising hopes for other aspiring entrepreneurs from the region. Auqib Javeed met the men behind the company.

FastBeetle – a Kashmir-based courier service – raised 900,000 rupees ($10,970; £9,266) for the Indian version of the show, where entrepreneurs pitch their product or service to a panel of investors, or “sharks”, who then decide whether to want to invest in their company or not.

Company founders Sheikh Samiullah and Abdul Rashid applied to Shark Tank on a whim after seeing an ad about the show on LinkedIn.

Her company is the first Kashmiri company to raise funds for the popular TV show, prompting one of the judges to question why he hadn’t seen more local entrepreneurs.

“We don’t have such facilities. There are no people like you [Shark Tank judges] who can support us, that’s why Kashmiri people need work,” replied Mr. Samiullah.

Mr Samiullah and Mr Rashid are now hoping that the funding they will receive will encourage more young people in Kashmiri to start their own businesses.

The Himalayan region of Kashmir has been a sensitive area as it is hotly contested by India and Pakistan who claim it in full but control parts.

For more than three decades, separatist militants have waged an armed rebellion against Indian rule in the region. India has accused Pakistan of supporting these militants, a charge Islamabad denies.

In August 2019, the BJP-led government revoked Article 370 – a part of India’s constitution that guaranteed significant autonomy to the Muslim-majority state of Jammu and Kashmir – and whittled it down into two federally administered areas.

The announcement was followed by several months of internet shutdowns and lockdown-like conditions, and thousands of additional troops were deployed to deal with unrest.

At the time, the Indian government said that the region’s special status was lifted for economic development, but official figures show that investment has declined over the past four years.

But officials insist things are getting better and the region is seeing a “boom” in local startups.

Aijaz Ahamd Bhat, director of the Jammu and Kashmir Entrepreneurship Development Institute (JKEDI), says the government is working on the “J&K Startup Policy 2023-2028”, which aims to encourage the creation of 3,000 startups in the region in the next five years to ease years.

He said it would help create jobs and boost the region’s economy. “The policy was already in place but we couldn’t implement it due to some issues and then the pandemic. Now we are changing it with expert help and a new policy will be released in the coming weeks.”

Mr. Samiullah and Mr. Rashid founded FastBeetle in 2019, just six months before Article 370 was repealed. Before founding his own company, Mr. Samiullah worked for an e-commerce company that shipped products across India.

“We thought this model could also be applied in cashmere, so we created our own brand,” he said.

FastBeetle delivery men picked up the products, packed them at their office in Srinagar, the region’s capital, and delivered them on motorbikes and minivans.

But after the abolition of Article 370, business came to a standstill. Products could not be delivered because no vehicles other than emergency services were allowed on the roads.

Communication blocks prevented the founders from communicating with their employees for months and the company’s losses totaled hundreds of thousands of rupees, says Mr Samiullah.

The founders say they paid salaries by dipping into their personal savings. Once things started to normalize by the end of 2020, they decided to resume business. But then the Covid-19 pandemic hit the world and they once again had to deal with month-long lockdowns.

But Mr Samiullah and Mr Rashid have not given up hope.

They realized that apple merchants in the valley were struggling to deliver their produce, so FastBeetle stepped in to ship the fruit across Kashmir.

“The apple industry is the largest source of employment in the region and the profits we made from supplying the fruit helped the company offset its losses,” says Mr Samiullah.

The company also began supplying oxygen cylinders and medicines to Covid patients.

Today, FastBeetle delivers everything, has 130 employees and operates across India and in several countries abroad. To date, 100,000 orders have been shipped to more than 55 countries. The company also works with over 1,500 micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs).

Mr Samiullah says they also try to help small business owners by supplying their products at reasonable prices.

Beenish Bahir Khan, 33, who runs Craft World Kashmir — an online shop that sells handmade crocheted ankle boots, bags and knitted winter clothing — says her business has gotten a big boost from FastBeetle.

“They pick up and drop off our products at our customers’ doorsteps and that has helped us expand.”

FastBeetle’s success story also serves as an inspiration for other entrepreneurs in the region, such as Arif Irshad Dar.

The 30-year-old runs an organic shop called Kashmir Origin, which sells fresh produce and handmade products made by Kashmiri farmers and artisans.

Mr Dar says he wants to grow his business like Mr Samiullah and Mr Rashid so he can create more jobs for people.

The budding entrepreneur says it’s heartening to see FastBeetle making waves on Shark Tank “because it showed that even a Kashmiri start-up can make it big.”

The founders say they are now working to build an “ecosystem of startups”.

There are challenges – they say people are still reluctant to invest in startups because of the uncertain political situation in the region.

“But we live here and know the situation. We are aware of the snowfalls and curfews, we have to get used to this atmosphere and move on,” says Mr Rashid.

BBC News India is now on YouTube. Click Here to subscribe to and view our documentaries, explainers, and features.