Medial, founded by Aishwarya Raj Pandey, Harsh Dwivedi, Niket Raj Dwivedi, & Prateek Kaien is a professional social network designed specifically for startups & entrepreneurs.

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It’s a dedicated space for startup founders to connect, share ideas, and seek funding. Users could interact with anonymity or real identities. It also has a curated news feed.

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Medial’s User Base: 75,000+ users Revenue Model: Pre-revenue. Offering: Mix of social networking, startup news aggregation, community discussions.

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Medial’s Equity Split: Aishwarya Raj Pandey: 16.72%. Harsh Dwivedi: 16.72%. Niket Raj Dwivedi: 16.72%. Prateek Kaien: 6.72%. Investors & Others: 33.12%.

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The founders asked for ₹50 lakh in exchange for 1% equity, valuing the startup at ₹50 crore.

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Things only got worse when the sharks questioned their acquisition strategy. As the founders struggled to defend their retention metrics, Sharks got frustrated.

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Just when it seemed like Medial would walk away empty-handed, shark Ritesh Agarwal stepped up.

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Despite shark Namita shaking her head, Ritesh saw potential. His offer was ₹50 lakh for 2.5% equity (cutting Medial’s valuation in half).

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The founders reluctantly accepted, not their ideal valuation, but better than leaving with nothing.

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