With greater than a dozen seasons value of pitches underneath its belt, the sheer variety of devices, gizmos, and gadgets which have made an look on the prime time actuality hit “Shark Tank” is legitimately staggering. Nevertheless, that huge tally is offset by the significantly smaller variety of merchandise that handle to entice the likes of Kevin O’Leary, Lori Greiner, Robert Herjavec, Daymond John, and quickly to exit Shark Mark Cuban to stake their very own hard-earned money on one providing or one other. The quantity is, after all, additional offset by the even smaller variety of merchandise that turn into a success within the market.
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Even nonetheless, now and again a product makes its solution to the “Shark Tank” sound stage that appears to have “hit” written throughout it. That is assuming each the entrepreneurial pitcher and the opportunistic sharks can discover sufficient frequent floor to strike a deal. That was very a lot the case throughout a Season 12 episode that discovered Justin Wang searching for funding to scale-up operations at his firm, LARQ. He does so by pitting LARQ’s self-cleaning sensible water bottles as a probably game-changing gadget within the clear water and reusable bottle market sector.
As “Shark Tank” viewers can attest, it takes greater than product to strike a cope with the sequence’ shrewd crew of potential traders, and Wang’s pitch certainly went a bit of sideways earlier than he righted the ship. Here is what occurred to LARQ after that fateful “Shark Tank” look.
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What occurred to LARQ on Shark Tank?
To be honest, “sideways” could also be a little bit of an understatement regarding the opening moments of Justin Wang’s “Shark Tank” pitch. In actual fact, the LARQ founder’s preliminary monetary phrases really elicited laughs and guffaws from each shark on the panel in that Season 12 episode, with Wang providing only a 1% stake in his firm in trade for a $500,000 funding. So underwhelming is the supply within the eyes of Robert Herjavec that the shark even asks the LARQ founder to verify he’d heard the phrases appropriately.
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Kevin O’Leary was additionally fast to not these numbers made LARQ the best valuation requested on the present to that time at roughly $50 million. Undeterred by the snark, Wang continues to flush out his imaginative and prescient for LARQ, and shortly sufficient peaks the curiosity of the skeptical sharks. That is in no small half as a result of LARQ had already turn into a minor presence within the reusable water bottle market previous to Wang’s look, with Wang claiming firm’s cleverly designed bottles — which make the most of UV rays to each sterilize an empty bottle or purify the water therein — boasted gross sales within the thousands and thousands.
Impressed by the gross sales numbers, and the possibly huge marketplace for LARQ water bottles, Wang managed to enter into negotiations with O’Leary, Herjavec, and Lori Greiner, and almost persuade the three to accomplice as much as the tune of $1.5 million after providing a bigger stake in LARQ. Herjavec, nonetheless, balked at a few of Wang’s phrases and pulled out of the deal. Ultimately, Wang locked Greiner and O’Leary in for $500,000 every in return for a 4% stake in LARQ.
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What occurred to LARQ after Shark Tank?
Provided that Justin Wang’s “Shark Tank” pitch started with dismissive laughter, it is spectacular that he managed to stroll out of the studio with double the funding cash he was looking for whereas solely barely upping the possession providing in LARQ. However given how nicely the self-cleaning gadgets had already been performing within the reusable water bottle market — although he did not make investments, even Daymond John admitted he already owned two LARQ bottles himself — Wang was clearly proper to carry his floor. In case there’s any query, LARQ has continued to develop its market presence within the years since that “Shark Tank” look.
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As of this writing, nonetheless, it is unclear whether or not or not the “Shark Tank” cope with Kevin O’Leary and Lori Greiner really closed, and it is likely to be value noting that LARQ is just not at present listed within the former’s funding portfolio from the hit sequence. Regardless of the case, it might appear LARQ was hardly in determined want of the “Shark Tank” funding, with Forbes reporting that Wang had secured $11 million in Collection A funding earlier than his look on the present.
Although LARQ might not have padded that quantity with an extra $1 million bucks from “Shark Tank,” one may simply argue the looks gave Wang’s firm a profile increase you could’t put a greenback quantity on. Since that look, LARQ has significantly grown its presence within the retail market, and may at present be bought via a number of high-profile retailers, together with Finest Purchase, Williams-Sonoma, The Container Retailer, and Amazon, amongst others. In flip, Wang additionally informed Forbes in 2021 that the corporate was projecting as a lot as $30 million in gross sales in 2022.
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What’s subsequent for LARQ?
Sadly, we’ve not been in a position to affirm these 2022 gross sales projections, or LARQ’s gross sales figures from 2023. Nevertheless, the corporate is just not solely nonetheless in enterprise, however seems to be on regular floor with Justin Wang nonetheless listed because the founder and CEO of LARQ. As for what the long run holds for LARQ, it needs to be famous that Wang and his staff have moved past simply producing a few of the perfect sensible water bottles in the marketplace, having additionally launched an in-home self-cleaning water pitcher since showing on “Shark Tank.”
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That product put the upstart LARQ in competitors with residence water filtration giants like PUR and Brita, and the transfer proved a fortuitous one for LARQ, with the corporate having been acquired by Brita for an undisclosed quantity early in 2024. To be clear, LARQ was not acquired by the identical Brita that is been promoting water filtration techniques within the U.S. for the previous few a long time. Fairly, LARQ reportedly bought to Brita GmbH, the German firm that bought its North and South American gross sales rights to Clorox in 2000.
As it’s, Brita GmbH continues to promote underneath its recognizable title in Europe, and could also be trying to leverage LARQ’s modern tech and model recognition as a solution to re-enter the U.S. gross sales area. Likewise, the cope with Brita GmbH would seem to open the doorways for LARQ to develop the gross sales of its merchandise on the European continent, marking a win-win for each corporations. Solely time will inform how the deal will pan out for every, however for now the long run appears fairly brilliant for LARQ.
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