PhoneSoap entered Shark Tank in January 2015 asking for $300,000 for 7.5% of the company. By then, the Utah startup was already selling its UV phone sanitizer through its own channels and 400 Staples stores, and it had generated $537,000 in sales in roughly five months.
The founders, cousins Wesley LaPorte and Dan Barnes, were not pitching a prototype and hoping someone would take a chance. They had a product in the market, early retail distribution, and a very specific argument: people cleaned their hands constantly, but rarely cleaned the phones they touched all day.
The Sharks still had doubts. Phone wipes already existed. Was a dedicated $60 device really necessary?
Lori Greiner thought the answer was yes. She offered $300,000 for 15%, then dropped her equity demand to 10% when the founders pushed back. They accepted.
The deal turned out to be one of the stronger retail bets in Shark Tank history. In the show's 2016 follow-up, PhoneSoap reported $4.9 million in sales over the year following its appearance. By 2023, the company had reached $187 million in cumulative retail sales, according to the Shark Tank best-selling-products ranking reported that year. (inc.com)
PhoneSoap started with a $63,000 Kickstarter campaign
The idea came from LaPorte and Barnes while they were students at Brigham Young University. LaPorte had experience with ultraviolet technology through laboratory work, while the two were already interested in building a business together.
They became interested in the hygiene of smartphones after encountering reports about how much bacteria could accumulate on phones. Rather than trying to clean the device with a liquid, they explored whether UV light could be adapted into a consumer product.
The result was PhoneSoap: a small enclosure that could hold a smartphone while UV light treated the device. The clever part was that it also functioned as a charger.
The founders used business-plan competitions to help fund development before turning to Kickstarter in 2012. Their original target was $18,000. The campaign raised $63,000, about 3.5 times the goal. PhoneSoap says its first product went into production in 2013 and that the company sold 22,349 units in its first year on the market. (phonesoap.in)
That early traction mattered when the company reached Shark Tank. It meant the Sharks were looking at evidence of consumer demand rather than a theoretical invention.
The founders walked into the Tank with $537,000 in sales
PhoneSoap's pitch was unusually straightforward.
The product was a UV sanitizer and charger. Put the phone inside, close the lid, and let the device do the cleaning while the phone charged.
The founders asked for $300,000 in exchange for 7.5% equity. Their reported sales at the time were $537,000 over approximately five months, with the product selling online and through about 400 Staples stores. Contemporary reporting also put the retail price around $60 and the production cost around $20. (inc.com)
But the Sharks did not immediately agree that the problem was big enough.
Robert Herjavec questioned whether consumers would care enough to buy a separate product when they could simply wipe down their phones. Mark Cuban also pushed on the economics and the practicality of the product. Kevin O'Leary proposed a royalty structure rather than the equity deal the founders wanted.
Cuban eventually offered $300,000 for 20%. Greiner countered with $300,000 for 15%, specifically seeing an opportunity to put PhoneSoap on QVC. The founders negotiated again, and Greiner reduced her stake to 10%.
They took her offer.
The final terms valued PhoneSoap at $3 million post-money, assuming the reported $300,000 for 10% equity was the complete deal structure. (inc.com)
Lori Greiner's real advantage was distribution, not just capital
The most consequential part of the PhoneSoap deal was arguably not the $300,000.
It was Greiner's retail experience.
PhoneSoap was already proving that people would buy the product, but it needed broader distribution and a stronger consumer-sales engine. Greiner saw an obvious fit with QVC, where a product could be demonstrated rather than explained through a static shelf display.
That distinction mattered.
PhoneSoap is not visually self-explanatory in the way a sponge or kitchen gadget is. Its value depends on understanding the problem and seeing the product perform its function. Television shopping gave the company a way to tell that story to a large audience.
PhoneSoap's own account says Greiner helped take the brand mainstream through QVC. The company also launched the larger PhoneSoap XL through another Kickstarter campaign later in 2015, raising more than $65,000 against a $30,000 goal. (phonesoap.in)
The Shark Tank appearance therefore became part of a broader distribution strategy rather than the entire growth story.
One year after Shark Tank, sales had jumped to $4.9 million
The numbers changed quickly.
When Shark Tank returned to PhoneSoap for an update in 2016, the founders reported $4.9 million in sales over the year following their appearance. The company had grown to 12 employees and had expanded its product range with a larger sanitizer designed for tablets. (looper.com)
That is a dramatic increase from the $537,000 in sales the founders had reported before appearing on the show.
It is also why the PhoneSoap story is more interesting than a simple "Shark Tank made them successful" narrative. They already had a functioning business before television exposure. The show accelerated something that was underway.
Greiner's retail access gave PhoneSoap another route to customers, while the Shark Tank appearance supplied credibility and awareness.
The combination was powerful.
PhoneSoap kept expanding beyond the original smartphone box
The company did not remain dependent on its first product.
PhoneSoap launched PhoneSoap 2 and PhoneSoap XL in 2016. The following year brought PhoneSoap 3, PhoneSoap Wireless and PhoneSoap Shine. PhoneSoap Go arrived in 2018 as a battery-powered travel model, followed by HomeSoap in 2019 for larger objects such as tablets and remote controls. (phonesoap.com)
That progression changed the company's positioning.
PhoneSoap was no longer simply selling a gadget for people worried about dirty smartphones. It was building a broader device-sanitization category around UV-C technology.
The company eventually moved further beyond device cleaning as well. AirSoap, an air purifier, was introduced in 2020, and the product portfolio has continued to expand. PhoneSoap says it launched a UV Toothbrush Sanitizer in 2024 and PhoneSoap Baby in 2026. (phonesoap.com)
Its current flagship PhoneSoap 3 combines UV-C sanitization with charging and is designed to fit phones as well as smaller high-touch objects. The company currently says it has sold more than 4 million units across its sanitizer products. (phonesoap.com)
COVID-19 gave PhoneSoap a market it had spent years preparing for
PhoneSoap's timing became extraordinary in hindsight.
The company had spent years selling a product built around the idea that frequently touched objects could carry germs. Then the COVID-19 pandemic dramatically increased public attention on contamination and disinfection.
Phone sanitizers suddenly made intuitive sense to a much larger audience.
Contemporary reporting described PhoneSoap products as particularly popular during the pandemic, including periods when products sold out. NBC reported that the company had generated more than $150 million in sales since its Shark Tank appearance. (nbcnews.com)
The later sales figures are somewhat messy because different sources use different definitions and reporting dates. Lori Greiner's materials have cited more than $150 million in retail sales after the show, while the Shark Tank best-selling-products ranking reported cumulative retail sales of $187 million as of May 2023. Those numbers should not be treated as competing annual-revenue figures; they refer to cumulative retail sales at different points in time. (yahoo.com)
The broader point is less ambiguous: PhoneSoap became one of the largest-selling products associated with the show.
PhoneSoap is still selling the same basic idea, but the business is much bigger
The original insight has survived even as the product line has changed.
PhoneSoap still uses enclosed UV-C technology to sanitize devices without liquids or wipes, and its current products combine sanitization with practical functions such as charging. The company says its products have been subjected to more than 15 independent lab studies and claims up to 99.99% germ elimination on qualifying products and conditions. Those performance claims are the company's own, so they should be distinguished from independently established health outcomes. (phonesoap.com)
The business itself has also survived well beyond the typical post-Shark Tank spike.
PhoneSoap says it has been operating for more than a decade and has sold more than 4 million sanitizers. Its current lineup covers phones, larger household objects, travel use, air purification and other categories rather than relying on one smartphone accessory. (phonesoap.com)
That is the real before-and-after story.
Before Shark Tank, PhoneSoap had already solved the hardest early-stage problem: getting strangers to pay for an unfamiliar product. The company had raised money on Kickstarter, entered retail, and generated hundreds of thousands of dollars in sales.
After Shark Tank, Lori Greiner helped turn that early traction into mass retail exposure. A year later, sales were already at $4.9 million. The company then kept extending the original concept into new products and benefited enormously when consumer concern about disinfection surged in 2020.
PhoneSoap did not become a hit because a Shark rescued a failing company. It became a much larger hit because the product had already found a real customer, and the Shark partnership gave that customer base a far bigger stage.
