Apolla Performance walked into Shark Tank asking for $300,000 for 15% of the company. Lori Greiner offered the same $300,000 for 25%, and after a brief negotiation, founders Kaycee Jones and Brianne Zborowski accepted.
That is the version of the story most Shark Tank update pages stop at.
It is also incomplete.
The episode aired on April 1, 2022, and Apolla's own history confirms the appearance. But the deal with Greiner apparently never closed. More importantly, Apolla itself did not disappear. Four years later, the company is still selling its compression socks, has expanded beyond its original dancer-focused market, and says it has more than 150,000 customers. (apollaperformance.com)
So what actually happened to Apolla after Shark Tank?
Apolla was already a $4.1 million business when it entered the Tank
Apolla was founded by dancers who were trying to solve a problem they knew personally.
Jones and Zborowski began developing the product in 2014. After prototyping and testing, the company began selling online in 2016. Apolla says its original goal was to create compression socks for dancers that offered more than ordinary compression: arch support, ankle stability and impact absorption built into the sock itself. (apollaperformance.com)
By the time the founders filmed their Shark Tank appearance, Apolla was not an unproven startup.
The company told the Sharks it had sold approximately 120,000 pairs and generated $4.1 million in lifetime sales. It had also done about $800,000 in sales during the year of filming. The socks were selling for roughly $32 to $40 a pair, while the founders said production cost about $6 to $10 per pair. Their reported gross margin was 73%. (sharktankblog.com)
That price was one of the central issues in the pitch.
Apolla's argument was that customers were not simply buying socks. The product combined compression, arch support, ankle stability and cushioning, while certain versions added traction for dancers.
The company had also accumulated credibility inside the dance world. Its own timeline points to professional dancers, Boston Ballet members and other performers using the products before the Shark Tank appearance. In 2020, Apolla says it received the American Podiatric Medical Association's Seal of Acceptance. (apollaperformance.com)
ABC's official episode listing describes Apolla as an all-female-owned, made-in-the-USA company with patented targeted compression, arch support, ankle stability and energy absorption. (abc.com)
Lori Greiner offered $300,000, but the deal did not become the story
The televised negotiation is straightforward.
Jones and Zborowski asked for $300,000 for 15%. Kevin O'Leary, Mark Cuban, Robert Herjavec and Emma Grede all declined to invest. Greiner remained interested and offered $300,000 for 25%.
The founders tried to reduce the equity to 20%. Greiner refused. They accepted her 25% offer. (sharktankblog.com)
That is why many websites still list Apolla as a Lori Greiner investment.
But the post-show evidence tells a different story.
A contemporaneous account reported that the deal had not closed after the episode. Later reporting continued to say the investment had not closed, despite the agreement shown on television. The Shark Tank Blog, which has maintained a long-running Apolla update, reports that the Greiner deal was still unclosed in January 2023. (sharktankblog.com)
There is an important distinction here: Apolla clearly accepted Greiner's offer on the show. What is not supported by the company's current public materials is that Greiner ultimately became an equity investor.
Apolla's present-day website identifies the business as Apolla Performance Wear and continues to tell its own story without identifying Greiner as an investor. Its current site also still carries Shark Tank among its media appearances. (apollaperformance.com)
So the safest description is that Apolla made a deal with Lori Greiner on television, but the deal apparently did not close afterward. Some Shark Tank databases still report different equity figures, including 20%, which is another reason not to treat those database entries as definitive evidence of a completed investment. (sharkary.com)
The immediate Shark Tank effect was real: Apolla sold out
Whatever happened with the investment, the television appearance produced the kind of demand Apolla had been hoping for.
The company sold out of much of its inventory after the episode and began dealing with backorders. Reporting from the period describes a significant order backlog, with the company planning to increase production capacity to keep up. (sharktankblog.com)
There is a useful wrinkle in the numbers here.
Apolla later became an example of a company getting the marketing benefit of Shark Tank without necessarily getting the Shark's capital.
A case study published by Videowise says Apolla sold what it had expected to sell in a week in roughly 15 minutes after the episode aired. The same case study says the company's subsequent use of customer-generated video content produced more than $193,800 in revenue attributable to that campaign. (videowise.com)
The 15-minute figure comes from Apolla's post-show experience as reported by the company and its marketing partner, rather than an audited financial statement, so it should be treated as a company-reported marketing result rather than an independently verified sales statistic.
Still, the broader point is difficult to dispute: Shark Tank put Apolla in front of a much larger audience, and the company had to manage a sudden increase in demand.
Apolla did not remain just a dance-sock company
The bigger change after Shark Tank was the audience.
Apolla originally designed its products around dancers and performance. Its current positioning is much broader.
The company's website now markets compression socks to people who spend long periods standing, including nurses, teachers, athletes, travelers and older customers. Its product range has also expanded beyond the original dance-oriented socks. Current offerings include the Performance, AMP, Joule, Infinite, Alpha, Endurance and K-Warmer lines. (apollaperformance.com)
That expansion is visible in the company's partnerships, too.
In May 2024, Santa Clara Vanguard announced a partnership with Apolla Performance Wear for its corps members and staff. The announcement described Apolla as a female-owned company that had gained national attention through Shark Tank and Good Morning America. (scvanguard.org)
Apolla has also appeared in national retail and media promotions. Good Morning America featured the brand in its Deals & Steals programming in 2023, selling the compression socks at a substantial discount from their regular price. (goodmorningamerica.com)
That is a different business from the narrowly targeted dance company the Sharks saw in 2022.
Apolla is still operating in 2026, but its exact revenue is harder to establish
There is no strong public source establishing Apolla's current annual revenue, valuation or net worth.
That matters because Shark Tank update sites routinely publish precise-looking estimates for those numbers. They are often presented as facts even though they are not company disclosures.
Apolla's own current website gives a clearer indication of operating status. It is actively selling products, lists a 30-day guarantee, maintains a retail locator and continues publishing educational and product material. The site currently displays more than 7,000 customer reviews and says more than 150,000 customers have bought from the brand. (apollaperformance.com)
Those are company-reported figures, not independently audited customer statistics.
There are also third-party e-commerce estimates. For example, Particl estimated Apolla's online sales at approximately $2.8 million over a six-month period in the data it tracks, with roughly $290,000 in estimated sales during April 2025. Those numbers are estimates of monitored e-commerce activity, not Apolla's reported total company revenue, so they should not be confused with financial statements. (particl.com)
That is about as far as the public evidence safely allows us to go.
Apolla is clearly still operating. It has a functioning direct-to-consumer business, an expanded product line, partnerships and an audience well beyond professional dancers. But there is not enough reliable public financial information to state a current annual revenue or valuation as fact.
The real Apolla Shark Tank update is less dramatic than the database versions
Apolla did not become a Shark Tank casualty.
It also did not become a clean example of a Shark-backed breakout.
The company got something arguably more useful than the television deal itself: exposure. The appearance generated enough demand to exhaust inventory, forced the company to work through backorders, and introduced Apolla to customers outside the dance community.
The Lori Greiner investment is the part that requires the most caution. On television, the founders accepted $300,000 for 25%. Afterward, reporting indicated that the deal did not close, and Apolla's current corporate materials do not identify Greiner as an investor. The exact circumstances of the failed closing are not clearly documented in the company's current public record.
What is documented is what happened next: Apolla kept building.
Today, Apolla Performance Wear is still selling its patented compression socks, still presents itself as a woman-owned, U.S.-made company, and has moved from a niche product for dancers toward a broader foot-support and performance brand. (apollaperformance.com)
The interesting part of the Apolla story, then, is not whether Lori Greiner's check ever arrived.
It is that Apolla appears to have built a continuing business without it.
