Where Is Inirv From Shark Tank Today?
The kitchen can be a truly wonderful place, but let's be real, it can also be a dangerous one. The leading cause of home fires and related injuries according to the National Fire Protection Association is cooking, which accounts for nearly 50% of such incidents. More specifically, unattended equipment is a major factor, being involved in more than half of all house fire deaths. It's not difficult to see why an entrepreneur would identify this as a pain point.
Inirv was dreamed up by Akshita Iyer, whose forgetful mother nearly started a fire in their kitchen. As a result, Iyer designed a system of self-turning knobs, a sensor, and a smartphone app that lets users turn off their stovetops from afar. Originally, she only had a concept, however this led to a Kickstarter, then a prototype. To date, the Kickstarted shows funding of over $175,000, but in order to make Inirv one of the best kitchen gadgets you can buy, it may have needed a shark.
The sharks turned up the heat
As SharkTankRecap relays, Iyer and her founding partner, Ranjith Babu, appeared on Season 9 Episode 14 of "Shark Tank," offering a measly 8% stake in Inirv for a whopping $800,000 investment. Some of the sharks were worried that Inirv would become obsolete as soon as oven manufacturers implemented such technology directly into their kitchen appliances. Others simply didn't think consumers were concerned enough about their own safety to purchase such a device. Mostly, $800,000 for 8% was just too steep of an ask from a venture that hadn't sold anything yet, let alone created a finished product. One by one, the sharks went out, yet Robert Herjavec countered with $800,000 for 20% equity. However, Inirv couldn't stand the heat, so it had to get out of the tank. No deal was struck.
"I have a little bit of regret about not taking Robert's deal," Babu told the cameras after walking off the set. "He would have been a great partner for us." And where there's smoke, there's fire as Inirv's situation only got worse from there. In the same year as the company's TV debut, it was sued by its manufacturer for allegedly not providing payment owed (via WRAL TechWire). In response, Inirv filed a countersuit blaming its manufacturer for supposedly producing faulty prototypes that Inirv claimed cost it a deal with the sharks. By the end of the year, though, the two businesses reached a settlement, and Inirv resumed raising money.
Inirv became Ome
Inirv had been scorched, but it didn't become one of the biggest Shark Tank food fails. Now, Inirv is Ome, which does indeed sell a finished one-pack product smart knob and smartphone app. So, why the name change? During her episode, Iyer informed the sharks "Inirv" referred to the medical term "innervate;" this relates to her and Babu's professional background, but does not have a strong connection to the core smart kitchen concept of the product. As explained by Iyer on Medium, they felt the original name didn't properly reflect their vision, which is now to bring "Ome" — a Sanskrit symbol for tranquil peace — into customers' homes.
Is it possible, though, that this name change was also designed to distance the company from bad publicity? After all, it failed on "Shark Tank" and got tied up in lawsuits. Additionally, all of the recent comments on Inirv's Kickstarter are complaints from users who still haven't received the product they backed with their own money all these years later. To be fair, Iyer says she doesn't regret what happened on "Shark Tank," the lawsuits were resolved with a settlement, and Inirv has responded to some Kickstarter users about getting updated shipping addresses. So, perhaps Ome will indeed go on to provide peace of mind to its customers, but at $200 per knob, it may still be a bit of a hard sell.