As seen on “Shark Tank”: LARQ’s self-cleaning water bottles.
LARQ
From taking on stylish water bottle brands like S’well, to battling filtration brands like Brita, LARQ has made quite a splash since its launch in 2018. But cofounder Justin Wang says he never felt the heat until he appeared on ABC’s Shark Tank back in April. Wang appeared on season 12, asking for half a million dollars for a 1% stake, making LARQ the highest valuation in the history of the show.
“Initially, we were laughed out of the room,” says Wang. “For the first 30 seconds, the Sharks were in disbelief. All they kept saying was, ‘You gotta be kidding me.’” Viewers on Twitter, meanwhile, were understandably skeptical of a $95 water bottle.
Larq’s self-cleaning water bottles use UV-C LED lights to kill up to 99.99% of bacteria and viruses, according to Wang. The products are also designed to self-clean every two hours.
But to convince the Sharks, Wang had to spill Larq’s numbers. He revealed the company pulled in $5.5 million in sales the first year, $9 million in the second and $14 million in the third.
This year, the water bottle company will pull in nearly $20 million in sales.
“Scandinavian design is part of my career heritage,” says Wang, who previously worked at FOREO, a Swedish tech company.
LARQ
“I slowly won the Sharks over and got offers for $1.5 million, three times more than my initial ask, from three different sharks,” says Wang. Previously, he was president at Foreo, a Swedish beauty-tech brand specializing in face cleansing tools. He was also an investor with L Capital, the investment arm of LVMH, where he advised founders inspired by style.
When the Shark Tank segment wrapped, Larq received $1 million for just a 4% stake in his company, from sharks Lori Greiner and Kevin O’Leary.
With the launch of the Larq Pitcher, its second product to ever hit the market, it projects revenue to reach $30 million in 2022.
Based in Foster City, California, Larq launched in 2018 with its original self-cleaning bottles after a record-breaking Kickstarter campaign. It raised $1.4 million in under 30 days.
“We drew plans for Larq bottles on a paper napkin in hopes of making an impact. We took 12 foundational patents and started the hydration category,” Wang says. He started Larq with Douglas Collins, a veteran of the LED and semiconductor space. Collins, who holds a Ph.D. in Physics from Caltech, developed proprietary technology that uses UV-C light to neutralize harmful and odor-causing bacteria. The Larq bottle, which costs between $78 to $120, is available in 15 retailers including Nordstrom, Revolve and MOMA. D2C accounts for 70% of sales.
“Whether it’s priced at $15 or $50, water bottles were increasingly used as a fashion accessory,” says Wang. “But the tech has to solve the problems and pain points when it comes to water safety and taste.” His team’s research found that despite the plethora of chic reusable bottles on the market, people could not kick their addiction to plastic-bottled water. (One million single-use plastic bottles being added to landfills every minute is just one of many troubling statistics that Wang recites often). In addition to the buildup of odor, reusable bottles are difficult to clean, deeming them inconvenient compared to disposables.
In September 2020, Larq raised $11 million in Series A funding from Seventure and DCM, allowing it to develop the pitcher’s filter and UV-C LED technology. It has already presold 20,000 pitchers, a category Brita has ruled for decades, controlling 70% of the market.
As a nod to sustainability, the pitcher is not only phthalate free and BPA free, but also made with food-grade plastic.
LARQ
The Larq Pitcher, which retails for $148, is the startup’s second product since launch. It has a two-stage filtration system that removes heavy metals and chemicals. It also links to an app that tracks hydration goals for the whole family. “We use IoT and material science to make the experience friction free,” adds Wang. The new pitcher will launch with Williams-Sonoma and MoMA.
Wang is unfiltered about the unsettling facts about what drips from our home faucets. “Whereas pitchers like Brita and Soma mostly remove chlorine and accompanying odors and tastes, they do not eliminate metal, arsenic, herbicides, pesticides and 50 other contaminants we’ve identified,” according to Wang.
Despite its Series A funding in 2020, Wang did not reject Shark Tank’s invitation to appear on the show the following spring. “We could always use more capital. Our Series A has great tech investors but we went on Shark Tank because we also have a component that is very consumer-facing and we don’t have consumer investors at the table,” says Wang. “It was a great opportunity to reach out to the most famous consumer investors out there.”
Wang admits it was great exposure. “We obviously reached a lot of new audiences through the show and I’d be lying if I said it didn’t help,” says Wang. “It just accelerated the journey we already were on.”
He adds the timing was also valuable, as it was the first Shark Tank episode to air since the pandemic shut down production for most of 2020. “Sustainability and wellness were at the top of mind for most people, which is part of the reason why they wanted us on the show,” says Wang. “Our themes are more relevant than ever.”
