Baobab Clothing Update | Shark Tank Season 11
The perfect polo shirt is difficult to find, but Brandon Davenport and Marcellus Alexander seem to have found an answer. Baobab combines a proprietary treatment process with quality materials to create stain and fade-proof polos. Unfortunately, their initial ask of $150,000 for 10% equity in Baobab Clothing wasn’t met by the sharks. Find out where they are now with our Baobab update.
Shark Tank Baobab Update
- Entrepreneur: Brandon Davenport and Marcellus Alexander III
- Business: Stain and fade-resistant polo shirts
- Ask: $150,000 for 10% equity
- Result: No deal
- Shark: None
Brandon Davenport and Marcellus Alexander founded Baobab clothing to create the perfect polo. They found that their favorite business casual shirts were fading, shrinking, and suffering from the dreaded ‘bacon collar.’
So, they decided to make better polos. They started with the best cotton in the world, Pima cotton, and treated the fabric to be stain-free, colorfast, and fit perfectly. Their pitch included a demonstration of their BaoTech fabrication process, as they splashed a white polo with coffee, wine, and even ketchup. All rinsed away with no staining or residue.
The sharks seemed to enjoy the shirts. However, they started to feel differently when Brandon and Marcellus revealed the value of their company. Despite their valuation, they’d only earned about $85,000 in sales.
The sharks started to see flaws in the company, especially in the name. Specifically Kevin O’Leary had concerns with the name, while Daymond John had a problem with the high valuation. Robert Herjavec had a conflict of interest with another company Buttercloth, so he had to go out.
After a lot of thought, Mark Cuban dropped out. He couldn’t see the value of the marketing skills that Brandon and Marcellus brought to the table. Unfortunately, they weren’t able to make a deal. But we’ve got a Baobab update and see how the company is doing today.
In our Baobab update, we discovered that the company is still going strong. Though their growth seems to be hindered by the pandemic, but they saw an opportunity despite it. In 2020, they started producing face masks alongside their polos and found great success doing it.
According to Forbes, Baobab Clothing managed $700,000 in sales in 2020. Forbes featured Marcellus Alexander, one of the co-founders of Baobab, as one of “The Next 1000” in 2021.
Baobab Clothing is also expanding its clothing line beyond polo shirts and face masks. The company is going places, despite its “difficult” name.
Check out the other Season 11 Episode 3 company updates below:
Before you go, check out our Season 11 products page for more Season 11 company updates.
