Ritesh Agarwal with Rana Daggubati at the airport.
Ritesh Agarwal, the founder and Chief Executive Officer of OYO Rooms, recently bumped into actor Rana Daggubati at the airport and pitched for him to be a judge on 'Shark Tank India'. The entrepreneur, who is a 'shark' on the third season of the business reality show stated that the South cinema superstar is an active angel investor in the startup community.
Mr Agarwal went on to say that the actor is interested in many different areas of technology. He took to microblogging platform X (formerly Twitter) and wrote, "On my way to catch a flight I bumped into @RanaDaggubati at the airport recently. As we got conversing in Telugu he told me he ardently follows @SharkTankIndia. Not a lot of people know but he is an angel investor and has a wide interest in multiple domains in technology and actively has invested in many startups. Maybe he could be a shark someday?"
Since being shared, the post has amassed 59,000 views on the platform.
"Rana is 100% a shark. The most diverse human being I know," said a user.
"He is amazing. He can be a visiting professor at B school," commented a person.
A third added, "That's awesome! It's always great to see successful people giving back to the startup community. Who knows, maybe we'll see him in the tank someday!"
"Woww," added a user.
"One thing I observed in Shark Tank India is there aren't any movie-related entrepreneurs in the show. Are our film industries that cabal operated? Of course @RanaDaggubati or @Shobu_ would make the show look (fire emoji) with Baahubaleconomics," said a person.
Meanwhile, Rana Daggubati forayed into the metaverse with his venture Ikonz in 2022. Ikonz is a metaverse firm that aims to assist musicians, celebrities, and collectables owners in managing their assets. It was co-founded in August 2021 by Indian-American entrepreneur Abhinav Varma Kalidindi and Rana Daggubati.
Talking about the brand's vision, the Telugu star had said then that he was looking forward to starting this new chapter as a co-founder at Ikonz and was excited to work with some of the country's most well-known IPs, such as Amar Chitra Katha and Tinkle, to pave the path into the metaverse.