On the latest episode of Shark Tank India 5, the founders of a parenting app, Pukaar.ai, got critical feedback from Namita Thapar, Anupam Mittal, and Aman Gupta, after they claimed to study an infant’s cry and provide appropriate feedback. While Namita and Aman questioned the authenticity of their claim, Aman said he had trust issues. He added that just because the pitchers were from an IT background, they decided to make an AI-powered app. Anupam Mittal also pointed out how ‘things will go wrong in the real world’ for the founders.Pukaar.AI is an AI-powered parenting app. It decodes their cry, tracks feeding and growth patterns, daily activities, and gives parents advice. It also sends the baby’s weekly health reports to doctors for review. Its founders, Karan Birpali and Akash Dangee, from Patiala, came to the tank asking for an investment of Rs 48 lakhs in return for 1.5 percent equity, placing the company’s valuation at Rs 32 crores.Also Read: Rs 8.46 crore monthly revenue: How Amit Jain’s top 3 Shark Tank India investments are outperforming the big spenders View this post on Instagram A post shared by Shark Tank India (@sharktank.india) After the pitchers revealed their ask, Anupam asked what exactly their app did. While Karan and Akash gave a demonstration, Aman Gupta seemed to disagree with the features. The founders shared how they used crying as a cue to understand the problems in babies. In response, Namita said, “I have two kids, and their crying sounds were very different. The elder one had a lot of colic issues; his crying sound when he had colic vs when he was hungry was very different. When the younger one had colic issues, his crying sound was very different from the elder one’s. So I don’t understand this. Every child has a different crying sound with an associated problem, so how do you capture that and figure out what is associated with what?”While the founders accepted that data was limited and research was still going on. They also claimed to have 80000 augmented cries. Listening to this, Aman said, “Aaj tak crore bacche paida hue hai, pata lag jaata hai parents ko ki kya ho raha hai. Aap log jo nikal kar de rahe ho, aisa lag raha hai, just because aaplog IT se ho, aise koi AI se cheez banate hai jo duniya phod dega (Crores of kids have been born to date, and parents usually figure out what’s wrong with the child. These solutions that you’re giving seem like just because you’re from IIT, you want to make something from AI that will disrupt the world.)”The founders further argued, “10 lakh kids die in India, and 40 percent of them are just because of delayed diagnosis. 23 percent of the time, they don’t understand the issue behind crying. Usually, mothers don’t understand crying patterns till 0-1 years. We are trying to gather data on the babies so we can build personalization for the future.” Namita responded to the founder and said, “You say mother starts to identify the cry after 0-1 years, that’s not true, we start to figure within 15 days to a month. How many mothers have you spoken to? How many mothers have you onboarded?”Also Read | From Kota to Rs 2 Crore: The 26-year-old Shark Tank India pitcher who flirted with Namita Thapar and sat on the floor to win over sharksWhat further worked against the pitchers was when they revealed being a pre-revenue company. They also shared that doctors on the app will be on-boarded on a revenue-sharing basis. Later, Aman questioned them, “You think doctors will trust this? And are they saying that your app is very good?” Ritesh Agarwal also pointed out that they don’t have any medical data, other than the cries.‘Aajkal sab AI laga kar ghoom rahe hai, but most of them are copycat models’After some scrutiny and criticism, Aman Gupta decided to opt out first and said, “Abhi jab tumlog jaaoge, raaste mein chaloge, tumhaare har jageh problem milegi (As you go along this journey, you will encounter lots of problems.) I don’t think you will get the trust of moms and doctors, either. And as Namita said, people understand in 15 days, so, unfortunately, I have no trust in this for now. I will be out, guys.” View this post on Instagram A post shared by Shark Tank India (@sharktank.india) Namita also decided to backout and said, “I will also be out. You need to work a lot on this. The two utilities I see as a mother, first is electronic health records, but for that, there are dozens of apps, second, which was a good one, was that a lot of health conditions go undiagnosed, you haven’t done that yet. A mother will only do something when a doctor advises her to, but if they get something for social media, it’s not a hook for a busy doctor to work with you. It’s a very weak model and not investible as of today.”Story continues below this adAmit Jain also added, “I use a heart rate monitor band that measures my heartbeats, so if you want to make things like these, go towards hardware. If that were an approach I would be interested, but you don’t have that approach, I don’t find this scientific, so I am out.” Ritesh said, “There are two things in this: one is journaling, and secondly, we want to take this from a parenting to a pediatric app over time. Journaling is valuable; you will get significant usage, but no monetization. The other issue is being able to ensure that if people can trust you, you will be able to monetize that. I don’t think this will happen. I couldn’t figure out any core competence in this, so I am out.”Anupam Mittal also didn’t make an offer; he rather said, “Aajkal sab AI laga kar ghoom rahe hai, aapne ne bhi lagay hua hai, but most of them are copycat models. If you try this on parents and kids in the real world, things will go wrong, and you will never be able to earn their trust. In vertical use cases like these, value can only be created where you go deep. You need to make a model that is not easy to replicate, not by taking another parenting app, make a pediatrician library, and try to make money. All have tried this and failed. You need a third commercial co-founder, but today I don’t see that, so I am out.”