Breathometer went from a $250,000 Shark Tank pitch to one of the show's most famous deals, with all five Sharks agreeing on camera to invest $1 million for 30% of the company. Within a few years, the smartphone breathalyzer was the subject of a Federal Trade Commission enforcement action, its customers were offered refunds, and Mark Cuban described the investment as one of his worst losses.
The central problem was not that the company failed to attract customers. It did the opposite. Breathometer attracted customers quickly, raised more money, expanded into new products and secured major retail ambitions. The problem was that its core breathalyzer could not reliably do what its marketing suggested it could do.
That distinction matters because Breathometer's story is not simply a case of a startup running out of money. It is a case of a promising consumer product colliding with the much higher burden of accuracy when the product is being used to make a safety decision.
Breathometer looked like exactly the kind of company Shark Tank was built to fund
Charles Michael Yim entered the Tank in 2013 seeking $250,000 for 10% of Breathometer. The product was a small breathalyzer that connected to a smartphone, originally through the phone's audio jack. A user blew into the device and the accompanying app produced a purported blood alcohol concentration reading.
The pitch had an unusually clear consumer proposition: give people an inexpensive, portable way to check their alcohol level before deciding whether to drive.
Yim had already demonstrated demand before the television appearance. Breathometer had generated about $140,000 in sales, according to contemporaneous reporting, and the company had also raised money through an Indiegogo campaign. After the episode aired, orders surged. Within roughly three months, Breathometer reported that sales had reached $1 million, up from $140,000 before the show. (abcnews.com)
The Sharks responded accordingly.
Mark Cuban initially offered $500,000 for 20%. Kevin O'Leary offered $250,000 for 15%, while Robert Herjavec and Lori Greiner joined O'Leary in a larger offer. Daymond John also entered the negotiations. Eventually, the five Sharks agreed to a combined $1 million for 30% of Breathometer, with Cuban contributing $500,000 for 15% and the other four Sharks collectively providing the other $500,000 for 15%. (mobihealthnews.com)
It was a television first at the time: all five Sharks were participating in the same deal.
The Shark Tank deal did not stay intact after the cameras stopped
This is where the Breathometer story gets more complicated.
The deal shown on television was $1 million for 30%. But the post-show investment structure did not remain the five-Shark partnership portrayed on the episode.
Contemporaneous reporting from MobiHealthNews described Cuban as buying 15% for $500,000. Later reporting says the other Sharks did not ultimately remain invested, leaving Cuban as the only Shark who funded the deal. (mobihealthnews.com)
There is some inconsistency in later accounts over the exact amount Cuban ultimately lost. Some reporting cites his original $500,000 investment; Cuban himself later described putting $1 million into Breathometer and called it his worst Shark Tank loss. (dallasnews.com)
So the safest description is this: the on-air agreement was $1 million for 30%, while the post-show investment did not remain the five-Shark deal shown on television.
That distinction is more than trivia. It is one reason claims that "all five Sharks lost $1 million" are misleading.
Breathometer's early growth made the company look like a Shark Tank success
For a while, the numbers supported the optimism.
Breathometer struggled to keep up with the orders generated by Shark Tank and had to increase production substantially. By 2014, the company said it was producing around 15,000 units a week, compared with roughly 1,000 previously. It also raised additional capital outside the show as it pursued a broader health-technology strategy. (mobihealthnews.com)
The company was also thinking beyond alcohol.
Yim described Breathometer as a breath-analysis platform that could eventually detect things associated with oral health, hydration and metabolic health. That strategy led to a new product called Mint, aimed at analyzing breath for oral-health and other wellness information.
By the time Breathometer appeared in a later Beyond the Tank update, the company had expanded significantly. The episode presented a business that was trying to move beyond its original breathalyzer and into a much larger health opportunity. The company's partnership plans included Philips, and Yim discussed a 50,000-unit initial purchase order for Mint. (sharktankblog.com)
On paper, the story was still moving upward.
Then the core product became the problem.
The Breeze breathalyzer had a safety problem that the company could not explain away
Breathometer eventually sold two principal breathalyzer products: the original smartphone-connected device and the Bluetooth-enabled Breeze.
The marketing claims were aggressive. The company said the products had undergone "government-lab grade testing," while Breeze was promoted as a "law-enforcement grade" product.
The FTC later concluded that those claims were not supported by adequate evidence.
According to the FTC's complaint, Breathometer learned in late 2014 that Breeze readings were developing a "downward drift." In practical terms, the device could report a lower BAC than the user actually had. The company attempted to compensate by changing the app's calculations.
Further testing in early 2015 revealed additional problems. Temperature and humidity affected readings, and Breeze's sensors deteriorated significantly over time. (ftc.gov)
For an ordinary consumer gadget, an inaccurate reading can be an annoyance.
For a breathalyzer marketed as a tool to help someone decide whether to drive, a falsely low reading is a fundamentally different problem.
The FTC action turned Breathometer's product problem into a regulatory crisis
In January 2017, the FTC announced a settlement with Breathometer and Yim over claims that the company had misrepresented the accuracy of its devices.
The FTC alleged that neither the Original nor Breeze had been adequately tested to substantiate the accuracy claims made in advertising. It also alleged that Breathometer knew Breeze could understate users' BAC levels while continuing to market the product with strong accuracy claims. (ftc.gov)
The financial scale of the consumer business was significant enough to make the episode more consequential. The FTC said the two products had generated $5.1 million in sales. The Original generally sold for $49.99 and Breeze for $99.99. (ftc.gov)
The settlement required Breathometer to offer full refunds to consumers who bought the devices.
The court order went further: the company was permanently restrained from re-enabling the breathalyzer functions in its app. (docs.justia.com)
That effectively ended the original business proposition that had made Breathometer famous on Shark Tank.
Breathometer's explanation and the FTC's account were not identical
There is an important distinction between the company's explanation and the regulator's findings.
Yim told TechCrunch that a "bad batch" resulting from a poor manufacturing process contributed to the problem. He acknowledged that the company had not had a good manufacturer and said the manufacturing process had not matched the claims being made about the product. (techcrunch.com)
The FTC's account was broader. Its complaint focused on inadequate evidence supporting the accuracy claims and on the company's knowledge that Breeze could produce understated BAC readings.
Those accounts are not necessarily mutually exclusive, but they lead to different interpretations of what went wrong. A manufacturing failure can explain why a particular batch performed badly. It does not, by itself, establish that broad "government-lab grade" or "law-enforcement grade" marketing claims were adequately supported.
The final settlement resolved the FTC case without requiring a trial determination of every disputed allegation.
Mark Cuban later called Breathometer one of his worst investments
Cuban's later comments are unusually revealing because the problem, in his telling, was not simply the technology.
In discussing his Shark Tank losses, Cuban singled out Breathometer and described it as his worst investment. He said the idea was good and the product was decent, but criticized Yim's management and spending priorities. Cuban recalled seeing the founder traveling and partying and said he questioned him about what he was doing with his time. (dallasnews.com)
That is Cuban's account, not an independently established explanation for the company's failure.
The objective record gives a clearer picture of the product problem: Breathometer's devices generated millions in sales, the FTC found that the accuracy claims lacked adequate substantiation, customers were offered refunds, and the breathalyzer functionality was permanently disabled.
In other words, even if management decisions contributed to the failure, the company also had a product-validity problem at the heart of its original business.
What happened to Breathometer after the breathalyzer was shut down?
Breathometer tried to become something other than a breathalyzer company.
The Mint product was part of that attempted transition into oral health and broader health technology. The strategy had real commercial ambition, including the Philips relationship discussed on Beyond the Tank. But the original breathalyzer had been the product that created the company's public identity, and the FTC settlement removed the foundation on which that identity had been built. (sharktankblog.com)
Current reporting on the company's ultimate corporate status is inconsistent. Some recent sources describe Breathometer as no longer operating as its original consumer breathalyzer business, while other accounts have suggested that the company continued in some form around health products. There is not enough reliable public evidence to confidently claim a particular acquisition price, exit valuation, or definitive corporate sale.
What can be established is simpler: the Breathometer breathalyzer business that appeared on Shark Tank did not survive in its original form.
Breathometer's Shark Tank failure was not caused by a lack of money
That is the part of the story worth remembering.
Breathometer had funding. It had customers. It had television exposure, retail distribution, additional investors, major strategic ambitions and the backing of Mark Cuban. It even achieved the unusual spectacle of all five Sharks agreeing to invest.
None of that solved the central question: could the device reliably measure what the company said it measured?
Once the answer became uncertain, the rest of the business became much harder to defend. A consumer gadget can survive mediocre accuracy. A product positioned as a safety tool cannot.
Breathometer therefore ended up as one of Shark Tank's stranger cautionary tales. The pitch worked. The fundraising worked. The television exposure worked. Sales worked, at least for a time.
The product claim did not.
And when the claim at the center of the business was whether a person was safe to drive, that was the one thing the company could not afford to get wrong.
