With wildfires and virus outbreaks, monitoring the air quality in your home is more important than ever. Woosh is the perfect device for this, a smart air filter that measures air quality in real time and sends notifications via a mobile app. Winston Mok appeared on Shark Tank Season 14 and signed with Kevin O’Leary. As of 2024, Woosh is valued at $5 million.
Background of Winston Mok
Winston Mok is an ambitious entrepreneur from San Francisco with degrees in Engineering, Computers, and Mechatronics from the University of Waterloo in Canada.
With an engineering background, Winston has held technical roles at BlackBerry and served as CEO of Simply Good Technologies and Level One Analytics. Prior to founding Woosh Air, Mock worked as a senior product manager at Google for over five years. He gave up a high-paying position to focus on a passion project.
Founding of Woosh Air
In 2019, a wildfire in California polluted the air so badly that Google had to strategically lock down its offices to keep its employees safe. Mock’s workplace was safe, but his home was not. So he decided to build his own HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) system.
Within a year, he developed a smart HVAC device that helps users monitor air quality. It also tells users when they need to change air filters. The data is transmitted to a mobile app via WiFi. Winston founded Woosh in 2020 and left Google the following year.
Mok received $1.3 million in a seed round in April 2022. The round was funded by executives from Google, TI Platform, Life360, and Quiet Capital. The entrepreneur also launched a Kickstarter campaign, which raised $62,817 from 336 backers.
Shark Tank Appearance
Walker had a fantastic opening, clearly explaining how his product worked, and when he revealed that the company had no revenue but had recently signed a promising partnership with Emerson, everyone in the Sharks groaned.
Kevin O’Leary was the first to make an offer after smelling a franchise deal. He offered $500,000 for a 12.5% share, but demanded a 0.50c royalty on every filter sold in perpetuity. When the rest of the sharks backed out, Kevin greedily raised his offer to 15%.
Winston did not like the idea of paying royalties forever because it would affect the company’s long-term cash flow. After some back-and-forth, Kevin accepted Winston’s proposal for a 10% stake, but the royalty agreement remained in place.
After Shark Tank
The positive PR from Shark Tank led to a significant increase in orders when the episode aired in October 2022. The company already had over 330 Kickstarter backers waiting for shipments, which were delayed by a year but began in December 2023. The deal with Kevin was not completed, most likely due to royalties issues.
The only way to buy Woosh products is through their website, WooshAir.com. Currently, they are only accepting pre-orders. The Smart Filter is priced at $99, and the Smart Filter + Air Quality Monitor Bundle is priced at $149.
Some customers have already received their purchases and have given 5-star reviews on the Woosh website. Showcasing a product that is still in the beta stage on Shark Tank will put a lot of pressure on shipping. Customers may have to wait at least 3 months to receive their orders. Woosh Air has 16 employees and is looking to hire more talent to help expand.
Woosh is ramping up production and finalizing parts for electronic products. Although an early-stage startup, Woosh has been valued at $5 million. Woosh could use the publicity to raise money from venture capital firms.
Winston has big plans for his company, and he confidently states, “What Nest has done for home thermostats is what we hope to do for HVAC air filters.”
Categories: Shark Tank
Source: svlsf.edu.vn