All You Need To Know About Shark Tank India 4 New Judge Srikanth Bolla ( Photo Credit – Instagram )
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The show Shark Tank India 4 has been grabbing several eyeballs for the budding entrepreneurs, coming up with some innovative pitches for the judges to invest. Now, the excitement level for the fans of the show will go several notches up as entrepreneur Srikanth Bolla is all set to enter the show as an addition to the panelists. He took to his social media recently to share the happy news. Here’s all you need to know about him.
Who Is Srikanth Bolla?
Born visually impaired by birth, Srikanth Bolla is the CEO, Co-founder, and Chairman of Bollant Industries Private Limited. According to his website, he also happens to be the first visually impaired student to have studied Management Science at the Sloan School Of Management Of Massachusetts Institute Of Technology. According to Financial Express, the annual turnover of Bolla’s company is around USD 150 million.
Srikanth Bolla was born on July 7, 1991, in Seetharamapuram, Andhra Pradesh in a Telugu family. His parents were advised to abandon him because of him being visually impaired but his parents worked hard to get him educated and for him to get a good upbringing. However, he faced several hurdles when it came to getting a stable education.
Apart from getting bullied by his classmates in school, Srikanth Bolla was denied from taking the Science stream despite getting extremely good grades. This led to him filing a case against the education system until he was given the authority after 6 months. Even after securing 98% in the 12th boards, he was denied admission to the coaching institutes for the IIT.
He became a member of the Lead India 2020: The Second National Youth Movement which was started by former Indian President, APJ Abdul Kalam. He co-founded the Samanvai Center for Children with Multiple Disabilities in 2011 wherein he started the Braille printing press to help other visually impaired students with their studies. He became one of the 3 Indians to be become 30 under 30 across all of Asia by Forbes.
In 2012, he co-founded the Bollant Industries with Ravi Mantha. Funded by Ratan Tata, the company manufactures areca-based products while also providing employment to disabled people. It uses municipal waste or soiled paper to manufacture an eco-friendly recycled Kraft paper.
Srikanth Bolla’s Bollant Industries further curates packaging products from recycled paper and disposable products from natural leaf and recycled paper. It also aims to transform plastic waste into usable products. According to Bollywood Shaadi, Bolla’s net worth is around 50 crores. He is married to Veera Swathi and the couple had a daughter named Nayana in 2024. The biopic Srikanth was released in 2024 which was based on his life and starred actor Rajkummar Rao in the lead role.
