This Friday, sharks will be circling a Chicago-made inflatable.
On 2/20, LuminAID will appear on ABC's Shark Tank, pitching its solar-powered, inflatable lamps to the show's panel of celebrity investors.
The startup's innovative lamps pack flat and inflate to create lightweight, waterproof lanterns that provide over sixteen hours of LED light. The safe, sustainable lamps were designed for relief situations. In fact, founders Anna Stork and Andrea Sreshta came up with the idea during an assignment while grad students at Columbia; they were tasked with developing a product to assist post-earthquake relief efforts in Haiti.
A year after the assignment, Stork and Sreshta were on a 2011 class trip in Tokyo when the city was hit with one of the worst earthquakes in history. At that moment, the project became the founders' mission.
“Our experience in Tokyo was a catalyst for us to bring this technology to market—it showed us that lighting is not something being distributed in emergencies, and even in very developed countries, it is still lacking after emergencies,” said Sreshta.
In 2012, Shresta enrolled at Chicago Booth and ran LuminAID through the Social New Venture Challenge, the university's business launchpad program for social enterprises. At the end of that program, the startup won first place and a $25,000 cash prize.
A year later, the startup competed in the Clean Energy Trust's 2013 Clean Energy Challenge, the Midwest's leading clean energy accelerator program. LuminAID won the $100,000 early-stage prize and used the funds to scale its operation and market its product commercially.
On top of selling individual lamps through its site, the startup also offers a 'Give Light, Get Light' program, allowing consumers to buy a lamp and sponsor a light that's distributed to a non-profit around the world.
To cheer on the company during its Shark Tank appearance, Chicago Booth’s Social Enterprise Initiative, the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, the Clean Energy Trust, and ComEd will be hosting an event on Friday featuring Sreshta and Stork. The event will be held at UChicago's downtown Gleacher Center and it will run from 7-10PM; the episode starts at 8 and the Trust will host a fireside chat with the founders afterwards.
Shark Tank is a program in which budding entrepreneurs pitch their products and companies to high-profile, celebrity venture capitalists and investors, like Kevin O'Leary and Mark Cuban. It airs Friday's on ABC at 8PM CT. Check out our Shark Out of Water series to see what a Chicago VC thinks of every episode.
"Being invited onto Shark Tank was a dream come true for us," said Sreshta. "As female entrepreneurs, we were fans of the show first. And now, we owe so much to ABC and the entire Shark Tank team for pushing us to take our products to a new level. We’re so excited for the future of LuminAID.”
(Image via LuminAID)
