When the Shark Tank India Season 5 premiered, new judge Mohit Yadav who is a co-founder of the skincare titan Minimalist opened up about his rawest and riskiest ordeal while he was beginning his entrepreneurial journey.
When Ravi Kumar Gupta — a founder who had mortgaged his own home and family jewelry to fund his kids’ apparel brand, pitched on the show and Mohit got choked up, sharing an “all-in” moment of his like I have never seen before. Prior to creating a skincare empire, Mohit dipped his toe into the kidswear market, which ultimately failed. But it was his decision to later start Minimalist that proved the ultimate gamble.
The Rs 1 Crore Gamble
To launch Minimalist, Mohit took a loan of Rs 1 crore against his family home, he disclosed. The decision was a heavy one:
- The Fear: Mohit openly confessed, “I had the fear that I won’t be able to give my family a house.”
- The Persistence, despite having his earlier attempts fail and in spite of the voices inside his head telling him that he’d be seen as a failure chose to double down on his vision for an open science driven skincare brand.
- The Success: That high-stakes bet paid off. In early 2025, beverages major Hindustan Unilever Limited (HUL) bought a 90.5 per cent stake in Minimalist at an eye-popping valuation of Rs 2,955 crore.
- Mohit Yadav: Spine Injury Survivor Mohit Yadav lost his mother when he was seven.
Not only is Mohit a risk taker, but he is also quite the disciplined academic and finance guy. 1) His path between “Gold Medalist” and “Shark” is a case study in calculated risk:
- Qualification: Gold Medalist Chartered Accountant (All India Rank 26)
- Professional: History Ex- Assistant Manager at Deloitte and AVP at Credit Suisse
- Key Investments: MangoStreet (acquired by Hushbabies), Freewill (custom haircare) and Minimalist
- Special Sauce: Minimalist has been profitable, every single year since 2021
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Why He’s the ‘Relatable Shark’?
And now, with Mohit’s entrance into the Tank you might say “Substance over Static” is coming into play. He has already become known for the sharp, finance-focused questions about scalability and unit economics that he throws everyone’s way. His compassion for the down-and-out pitcher, Ravi, came from personal experience—realizing that failure is more of a mind set than an actual disability; but to lose one’s home?
The Indian beauty market has been turned on its head under his watch, with Minimalist overturning all the quaking and QE volume obsession, disrupting it by productising ingredient transparency as opposed to GSTP marketing gimmicks and achieving a revenue target of Rs 100 crore within eight months of going live.
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