Soo, Da Woon, and Aram Kang Present Coffee Meets Bagel On Shark Tank
Highlights
- Coffee Meets Bagel was brought to Shark investors by sisters Soo, Da Woon, and Aram Kang.
- The Kang sisters rejected an offer from a prominent Shark panelist.
- The Kangs’ dating app currently makes $36 million in annual revenue.
Shark Tank is gripping its viewers with its latest season. One thing that has kept the show relevant is presenting moments that they never expected to happen. The sixth Shark Tank season offered viewers one such moment during the Coffee Meets Bagel segment.
Brought by the sister entrepreneur trio of Aram, Soo, and Da Woon Kang, Coffee Meets Bagel received the largest offer ever on Shark Tank. Prominent Shark investor Mark Cuban offered the sisters a whopping $30 million for the dating app business. But the Kang sisters surprised everyone by rejecting the deal.
The entrepreneur trio’s final decision on Shark Tank led to a lot of debate after the episode. Below are detailed insights about the journey of Coffee Meets Bagel after declining a massive deal on the show.
Coffee Meets Bagel: Journey After Shark Tank
In 2015, Da, Soo, and Aram approached the Shark panelists. In a month after this, they were successful in getting a $7.8 million series A financing round. This round was initiated by DCM Ventures. Three years after this development, Coffee Meets Bagel raised a further $12 million.
The second funding was done in Series B and was led by Atami Capital. Both these funding rounds demonstrated that after Shark Tank, people from the dating app vertical were quite impressed with what the Kang sisters had been doing.
However, a small trouble brewed in for Coffee Meets bagel when its users accused the company of data breach. This troubling event for the Kang entrepreneur trio happened between late 2017 and mid-2018. Although this could have been a major halt for the dating app, Coffee Meets Bagel kept going.
The success of the dating app can be ascertained by the fact that it was making $16 million annually in the last year. As claimed by the sister trio on Shark Tank, most of their users are millenials. The latest update about Coffee Meets Bagel is that its annual revenue in 2024 is $36 million.
Additionally, the Kang sisters claim that with 10 million sign-ups and 2.5 billion new introductions, their dating app is valued at $150 million.
Now that a fair picture of what happened to Coffee Meets Bagel after Shark Tank has been provided, read below to learn how and why its founders rejected Mark’s offer of $30 million.
Coffee Meets Bagel: Pitch Recap
Aram, Soo, and Da Woon Kang approached the Shark investors seeking $500K for 5% equity in Coffee Meets Bagel. Aram explained that their dating app allows women to have the final option of who they want to connect with. Coffee Meets Bagel used Facebook to help users apply for the dating app.
After giving a video demo of their app’s functioning, the Kang sisters received questions from the Shark investors. They were hesitant to reveal the dating app’s exact number of users. But when the Sharks got annoyed, they revealed that Coffee Meets Bagel had about 100,000+ users.
The Kang trio added that they had appeared on Shark Tank for support with cash and growing the reach of their dating app.
Why Coffee Meets Bagel Refused The $30 Million Deal?
While revealing their business figures, the Kang sister entrepreneur trio said that they had lost $1 million on $1 million in sales. Despite this they were taking a $100K salary each. On hearing this, all the Shark investors opted out of the deal one after another. Right after this, Mark Cuban made an offer.
He asked the entrepreneur trio if they were willing to give up Coffee Meets Bagel for $30 million. The trio refused to accept Mark’s proposal as they felt their dating app was of more value than this. This is because their competitor, match.com, was then making $800 million in revenue.
The Kang sisters believed that Coffee Meets Bagel could do something similar. Hence, they stayed away from accepting Mark Cuban’s $30 million deal.
Conclusion
The decision to turn down the $30 million deal by Mark Cuban did more good than bad for Coffee Meets Bagel. After Shark Tank, the Kang sister entrepreneur trio secured millions of dollars through funding, expanded their user reach to millions, and tackled issues of data breaches.
With sign-ups more than 10 million and annual revenue of over $36 million, Coffee Meets Bagel demonstrates its huge potential for coming years.
References
- Coffee Meets Bagel, Wikipedia
Entrepreneur, auteur, raconteur. Rob Merlino is a blogger and writer who enjoys the Shark Tank TV show and Hot Dogs. A father of five who freelances in a variety of publications, Rob has a stable of websites including Shark Tank Blog, Hot Dog Stories, Rob Merlino.com and more.
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