Shark Tank Sports Dream Product

Keen Home, a New York City tech start-up, secured one of the biggest deals ever on Feb. 20 on ABC’s mega hit series, Shark Tank, in front of the second largest audience in the show’s six-year history. Shark Tank’s millionaire/billionaire venture capitalists hear pitches from companies seeking financial support. Approximately 39,000 entrepreneurs apply each year to pitch their product to the sharks, with under 100 selected. Only half of those companies receive an offer.  Keen Home was selected to pitch their product and received the highest offer ever for a tech company.
The Keen Home’s vanguard product, the Smart Vent, is an intelligent system of forced air heating and cooling vents which improve efficiency, reduces energy costs, and ensures comfort, by automatically opening and closing vents in individual rooms. The company’s cofounders, Nayeem Hussain and Ryan Fant, made the successful pitch to the sharks. Working behind the scenes were Nathan Meryash, a 2001Manhasset High grad and Will McLeod, a 2004 Chaminade grad. Nathan joined the Keen Home team as chief technology officer last May to meet their needs for expertise in electrical engineering hardware design and China manufacturing. Will is a mechanical engineer and product designer, who is also one of Keen Home’s cofounders.
Fant and Hussain came up with the idea for Smart Vents while pursuing their MBAs at New York University. Keen Home is a young, but growing tech NYC startup that prides itself
on teamwork, and that has been pegged as one of the vibrant up and coming tech hardware development companies in New York. The company is focused on creating vital and
reliable products for the home that will afford consumers both energy savings and comfort.
In a lively round of negotiations on Shark Tank, four of the five sharks made offers to Keen Home. Ultimately Keen Home accepted Robert Herjavec’s offer of $750,000 for a 13 percent stake in the company. This was the highest bid ever on Shark Tank for a tech company, and the seventh largest overall in the history of Shark Tank. (Click here for earlier post)
Keen Home has an agreement with Lowe’s Home Improvement stores to sell the Smart Vents when they become available this summer. Homeowners can also pre-order them directly through Keen Home’s website, www.keenhome.io.