The $1.25 million deal between Jeff Stroope and Mark Cuban never actually closed. More than a decade later, though, Hy-Conn is not simply a dead Shark Tank company either.
Hy-Conn’s current website is live, its products are being sold, and the company says it is manufacturing its quick-connect fire-hose fittings in Arkansas. In 2024, Stroope was still demonstrating the product at FDIC International, one of the major gatherings for the firefighting industry. A U.S. patent originally associated with Stroope was also assigned to Hy-Conn Group LLC in December 2024. (hy-conn.com)
That makes Hy-Conn a more complicated Shark Tank story than the usual “deal fell apart, company disappeared” narrative.
The company did lose the Shark. But it appears to have survived the loss.
Hy-Conn went into the Tank asking for $500,000
Jeff Stroope, a firefighter and machinist from Arkansas, developed Hy-Conn around a simple problem: connecting a fire hose to a hydrant takes time.
His solution was a quick-connect adapter designed to attach to a threaded hydrant without the usual wrenching and threading process. The company says the connector can make the connection in about three seconds. A 2024 article in Fire Apparatus & Emergency Equipment independently described the same basic mechanism and reported that Hy-Conn could reduce a hydrant connection from roughly 30–40 seconds to about three seconds. (fireapparatusmagazine.com)
When Stroope appeared on Shark Tank in 2011, he asked for $500,000 in exchange for 40% of Hy-Conn.
Mark Cuban ultimately made the memorable offer.
Cuban offered $1.25 million for 100% of the company, along with a three-year employment agreement for Stroope and royalties. Contemporary reporting described the royalty component as 7.5%, with Stroope receiving a salary of $100,000 per year during the three-year agreement. (talkbusiness.net)
On television, it looked like a spectacular outcome.
Off camera, it became one of the better-known failed Shark Tank deals.
Mark Cuban’s $1.25 million deal fell apart after filming
The important distinction is that the deal shown on television was not the same thing as a completed acquisition.
A June 2011 report from Talk Business & Politics said Cuban wanted to pursue licensing rather than manufacture the product himself. Stroope rejected that approach, and the proposed transaction did not proceed. The same report said 101 Ventures subsequently took an equity position in Hy-Conn and that the company was pursuing distributors and potential manufacturing partners. (talkbusiness.net)
Stroope later gave his own account of what happened.
In a 2012 interview, he confirmed that the verbal deal with Cuban was never finalized in writing. He said the assumption that he had already secured Cuban's investment created problems because he was still looking for financing after the show. (justelementary.com)
That distinction matters when recounting the Hy-Conn story. The company did not receive a $1.25 million investment from Mark Cuban.
It received a televised offer that ultimately failed to become a completed deal.
Stroope's later public comments were critical of how the negotiations changed, while also making clear that he did not consider the episode a personal feud. In later comments, he said he had no anger or bad feelings toward Cuban. (fandomwire.com)
So the oft-repeated version that Cuban “bought” Hy-Conn for $1.25 million is misleading. He offered to buy it. The purchase never happened.
Hy-Conn kept going without Cuban
The failed deal did not immediately kill the company.
Contemporary reporting in 2011 said Hy-Conn was already receiving interest from distributors. Talk Business & Politics reported that 101 Ventures was involved and that several orders had been placed for the fire-hydrant connector, while as many as 30 distributors had contacted the company. It also reported interest in the garden-hose version of the product. (talkbusiness.net)
The road afterward was much less dramatic than the Shark Tank episode.
Hy-Conn remained a small manufacturing operation rather than becoming the national-scale firefighting company that a $1.25 million investment might have produced.
Its patent story, however, is straightforward. Stroope's fire-hose connection adaptor patent was granted in 2013. The patent record now lists Hy Conn Group LLC as the current assignee, following an assignment from Stroope recorded in December 2024. The patent is currently listed as active, with an adjusted expiration date in 2031. (patents.google.com)
That is a useful piece of evidence because it is a government patent record rather than a Shark Tank recap site making a guess about the company's status.
Hy-Conn looked inactive online, but that was not the whole story
For years, Hy-Conn was easy to mistake for a failed business.
Older versions of the company's web presence became difficult to use, social media activity slowed considerably, and several Shark Tank-focused sites eventually described the company as inactive or out of business.
Those claims are understandable if the only evidence is an old website or an abandoned social account. They are also incomplete.
In 2024, Stroope was actively promoting Hy-Conn at FDIC International, the major Indianapolis firefighting conference. Fire Apparatus & Emergency Equipment covered the product at the event and described its technical operation, including its three-second connection claim and 250-psi rating. (fireapparatusmagazine.com)
Stroope's own LinkedIn activity from the same period shows Hy-Conn demonstrating products at FDIC 2024 and discussing orders and customers. (linkedin.com)
There is also evidence that the company was still physically manufacturing the connectors. A LinkedIn post associated with D&M Holding Company shows Hy-Conn Pro Edition units being machined, while other posts reference demonstrations and long-term use by fire departments. (linkedin.com)
That makes the “Hy-Conn disappeared after Shark Tank” version difficult to sustain.
Hy-Conn is selling its products again
The strongest evidence for Hy-Conn's current status is the company itself.
As of August 2026, Hy-Conn's official website is active. It presents the company as an Arkansas manufacturer of quick-connect fittings for fire departments, municipalities, industrial operations, military facilities and other users. The site provides a shop link, distributor information and a direct contact route for orders and quotes. (hy-conn.com)
Hy-Conn says its fittings are CNC-machined, assembled and tested in-house in Arkansas. It also says the product supports more than 300 thread types, with custom machining available for unusual specifications. The company claims a network of more than 45 distributors across the United States and Canada. Those figures are company-reported rather than independently audited, so they should be treated as such. (hy-conn.com)
The company's current site also says it ships to the U.S., Canada, Singapore, Indonesia and Puerto Rico. Again, these are Hy-Conn's own current claims, not independently verified sales figures. (hy-conn.com)
But the larger point does not depend on accepting every marketing number.
There is a live company website. There is a functioning product catalog and sales channel. There is recent trade-show activity. There is recent evidence of manufacturing. And the company's core patent has been assigned to Hy-Conn Group LLC.
Those are materially different facts from an abandoned Shark Tank business.
So, is Hy-Conn still in business?
Yes, the available evidence indicates that Hy-Conn is still operating.
It is not the high-growth company that the Shark Tank appearance might have suggested. There is no reliable public figure establishing Hy-Conn's current revenue, valuation, profit, or number of customers, so claims about a multimillion-dollar “net worth” should not be treated as established fact.
What can be established is narrower and more useful.
Jeff Stroope's deal with Mark Cuban did not close. Hy-Conn continued without Cuban. The company obtained and maintained intellectual-property rights around its connector technology, later transferring the patent to Hy-Conn Group LLC. By 2024, Stroope was again exhibiting and demonstrating Hy-Conn at a major firefighting industry event. And in 2026, the company's own website is still selling the product and soliciting orders. (patents.google.com)
That is why Hy-Conn's Shark Tank aftermath is better described as a failed Shark Tank deal followed by a long, uneven attempt to build the company independently.
The $1.25 million never arrived.
Hy-Conn did not become Mark Cuban's fire-equipment company.
It also did not disappear.
Instead, Stroope appears to have kept the business alive long enough to bring it back into the firefighting market on his own terms. As of 2026, that is the part of the Hy-Conn story the old Shark Tank headlines tend to miss.
