Jugaadu Kamlesh is an Indian farmer and the owner of KG Agrotech, an agriculture product company. He appeared on the TV show ‘Shark Tanks’ (2022) as one of the pitchers attempting to get an investment from the judges (sharks) for his pesticide trolley cart.
PERSONAL INFORMATION
Kamlesh Nanasaheb Ghumare was born in Devarpade, Malegaon, Maharashtra in 1996.
His father works as a farmer. Nilesh Ghumare, his elder brother, is a member of the Indian Army. As of 2022, he is not married.
EDUCATION
Jugaadu Kamlesh attended NS Deshmukh Vidyla Chikhal O – Malegaon in Maharashtra. In his second year of BCA at Maharaja Sayajirao Gaikwad College in Malegaon, Maharashtra, he dropped out.
PHYSICAL APPEARANCE
Height (approx.): 5′ 7″
Hair Colour: Black
Eye Colour: Black
CAREER
After a string of failures in his career, he opened a small hotel in his hometown, but he was forced to close it permanently. In one of the talk shows, while talking about it, he said,”I started a hotel in my hometown all was going well. But one day, one of my friends took my phone and dialled a random girl’s number. The situation escalated into a major controversy. People began to pass judgement on my character. Everyone in the village used to mock my parents because of my personality. But my parents believed in me and knew I would never do anything wrong. My mother once told me, “We hope you do such a good job that the people who are taunting us come to us for help.”
Kamlesh then began working as a farmer with his father. While working there, he noticed that the pesticides they used to spray in the farms were causing serious health problems for his father. He described the entire incident in an interview. “One day when I was in the farms, I saw my father spraying insecticides, and as a result of the insecticides, he had various skin diseases, but he never complained about it,” he explained. But I decided to help my father and the rest of the farmers in the country. I considered simplifying the process. I wasn’t an engineer, but I had a strategy. I used to go to the local kabaadi shops to get some spare parts or scrap. Initially, it was like a bicycle structure and was inefficient, but I gradually added elements to it and changed it to meet the needs.”
It took him nearly 7 years to create a pesticides trolly cart. In 2012, he posted a video of his trolley cart on YouTube, which quickly went viral on social media. He even received offers from various companies to sell his product to them, but he declined.
He saw a promo for the TV show ‘Shark Tanks’ on his phone in 2021. After seeing the advertisement, his brother-in-law invited him to participate in the show. After several rounds of auditions, he and his brother’s son Naru appeared in front of the judges (dubbed “sharks” on the show) in 2022.
The judges liked his idea and pitch, but the offer to invest was rejected by the four judges (sharks); only Lenskart co-founder and CEO Peyush Bansal accepted the offer. Peyush offered him Rs. 10 lakh in exchange for a 40% stake in Kamlesh’s company, KG Agrotech, and a loan of Rs. 20 lakh at 0% interest.
