Coffee Meets Bagel Shark Tank 3,9/5 7792 votes

Coffee Meets Bagel launched in Boston on May 10, 2012 and in San Francisco on October 24, 2012. In January 2015, Coffee Meets Bagel was featured on Shark Tank. In February 2015, the company announced a $7.8 million Series A financing round led by existing investor DCM Ventures.

We help the Millionaire Matchmaker find a date on Tinder
  • Coffee Meets Bagel on Shark Tank The Kang sisters entered the Shark Tank hoping to gain a shark partner who would invest $500,000 in exchange for 5% equity in the company. They ran through the.
  • Today, Coffee Meets Bagel – which already raised $2.8 million from investors including Match.com cofounder Peng Ong - announced that it has closed a $7.8 million Series A financing round.
  • Coffee Meets Bagel or “CMB” is an online dating app that prides itself. Their growing idea gained traction and interest on the famous Shark Tank show in.

Rejecting an investment from billionaire Mark Cuban can result in a big fallout.

That was the case for Arum Kang, cofounder of dating app Coffee Meets Bagel.

Coffee meets bagel shark tank season

Kang and her two sisters pitched Cuban and the other sharks on ABC's Shark Tank in an episode that aired in January 2015. Cuban bit: He offered $30 million for the entire company,the largest offer in the show's history at the time.

But the women didn't accept his deal, and Kang said the vitriol was intense.

Bagel

'It was one of the first times I felt like we were being attacked perhaps because of [our] gender,' said Kang onstage at the Montgomery Summit on Tuesday.

TankShark

Kang said the insults -- which came in the form of emails, app reviews and YouTube comments -- were largely the same sentiment: 'Greedy sisters.' They were called everything from spoiled to stupid.

'At some point, I did wonder, if I were a guy, would I have been called all of these names?' Kang said on a a panel moderated by CNNMoney's Cristina Alesci.

Alesci responded: 'You probably would've been called smart.'

'Or ambitious, bold,' said Kang.

She later told CNNMoney that she wondered if people would have praised the decision if they were men, rather than calling them 'gold diggers.'

'We said 'no' for good reasons, but the amount of emails and comments we got for rejecting that offer were incredible,' she added.

The sisters rejected the $30 million because they believed that Coffee Meets Bagel would one day be worth much more. Instead, they wanted Cuban to invest $500,000 in exchange for a 5% stake in the company.

'People don't realize when they say these things that there is subconscious bias ... I think the fact that we were women played into people's perceptions,' Kang said.

The women were also harshly criticized for their salaries: $100,000 each, even though they spent $1 million to bring in $1 million in sales.

Kang said that, while their salaries might not make sense to many Americans, it's not atypical in San Francisco, given the high cost of rent. She said they didn't even take a salary when they first started the company -- and the increases been incremental.

On the show, the women said that they were expecting to bring in $10 million in sales last year. While it's free to use the app, users can purchase premium features. Kang said between 2% and 8% of users opt to pay.

Coffee Meets Bagel Shark Tank Reddit

Kang said they didn't meet that goal -- but that's because they were laser focused on user growth.

Contrary to what many thought, Kang said appearing on the show wasn't merely a PR stunt.

The women were raising money -- they closed $7.8 million in February 2015.

Coffee Meets Bagel Shark Tank Episode

The show did help the app acquire more singles. The app had between 100,000 and 500,000 users when the show aired, and Kang said there are now 'millions.'

Coffee Meets Bagel Shark Tank
CNNMoney (Santa Monica) First published March 9, 2016: 12:33 PM ET