Flora Plant Monitoring Update | Shark Tank Season 15
Entrepreneur Aabesh De pitched his plant care company during
If you’re short on time, here’s a quick overview of what happened to Flora after
Aabesh De appeared on
| Shark: | Result: |
| Lori Greiner | $300,000 for 15% equity, 5% advisory shares, and $2 per unit royalty until the investment is recouped |
| Barbara Corcoran | No offer |
| Mark Cuban | No offer |
| Robert Herjavec | No offer |
| Kevin O’Leary | No offer |
Shark Tank Flora Update
- Entrepreneurs: Aabesh De
- Business: Plant monitoring
- Ask: $300,000 for 10% equity
- Result: $300,000 for 15% equity, 5% advisory shares, plus $2 per unit royalty until investment is recouped
- Shark: Lori Greiner
Aabesh De struggled to keep his plants alive. That’s why he created Flora, a plant monitoring system.
The Flora is essentially a plant sensor that you place into your plant pot to monitor the condition and needs of your plant. It can tell you about the moisture, light, temperature, and humidity needs of your plant.
Additionally, the product includes an app, which can be used with or without the sensor. The app includes watering reminders, care guides, and plant identification, and more.
You simply add the staked sensor to the dirt of your plant. Then you add your plant to the app and you will have whatever information you need to care for and track your plant’s health at your fingertips .
In terms of cost, the Flora is $28 landed at the moment. However Aabesh is confident that he can bring that down to $14. It then retails for $49.
Kevin O’Leary is a bit outraged by the price point. Aabesh points out that you only need one Flora, which can be used with all of your plants by moving it around.
When asked about competition, Aabesh says that the only real competition is with other apps that are doing a similar thing.
In terms of gross sales, last year he did $192,000. Breaking that down, about $50,000 of the sales came from the Flora pod, while the remainder came from app subscriptions.
The app offers a premium subscription for $10 a month, or $60 a year. He currently has 225,000 users on the app and 3,000 paid subscribers.
In the year of filming, he’s done about $100,000 in sales so far. That said, the company is not yet profitable.
In the year prior, he lost $500,000 to net $100,000. He also raised about $670,000, mainly from angel investors and friends and family.
At this point in the pitch, the sharks want to know more about Aebesh. He goes on to share that he’s a first generation immigrant from India.
He moved to America with his parents, went to college in Indiana, and eventually got a job with Microsoft. Although when the pandemic hit, he found himself at home with his plants, that he could not keep alive.
That’s when he deiced to invent something that would help him do this. He eventually left his job at Microsoft, to go all in on Flora.
Robert Herjavec is the first shark to drop out. He doesn’t own any plants, so the business isn’t for him.
Mark Cuban can relate to Robert. He goes out for the same reason.
Barbara Corcoran on the other hand loves plants. However, she said she would never go for a subscription after buying the Flora pod.
Barbara ultimately goes out, leaving two sharks still in. Unfortunately, Kevin O’Leary isn’t at all interested in plants, so he goes out next.
This leaves only Lori Greiner. Lori says she would need too much equity in order to invest, but just as she’s about to pass, Aabesh challenges her to say what that amount would be.
She says for $300,000 she would need 30% equity. Aebesh then counters her with $300,000 for 15% equity and 5% advisory shares.
He’s also open to working out a royalty deal. This peaks Lori’s interest, so she asks him to offer a royalty.
In addition to his previous offer, he then adds on $2 royalty, per unit, until Lori’s $300,000 is made back. Then the royalty goes away. Lori agrees to the terms and they make a deal!
What happens next for Flora? Keep reading our Flora update to find out!
We got to talk to Aabesh for an exclusive Flora update. “As we were growing Flora, it made a lot of sense to apply as we had an innovative hardware product in a niche vertical,” Aabesh told us.
He shared that pitching on the show was an amazing experience and meeting the sharks was a dream come true. Of course, the exposure from the show was a huge benefit as well.
“Sales have jumped more than 500% across the board compared to the last month,” Aabesh told us. “We’ve added more than 10,000 downloads due to the
As for the deal with Lori, it’s still going through the due diligence process and will hopefully go through when it’s all said and done.
The Flora pod is currently available on the Flora website. Although, the price has slightly increased since the episode was filmed.
Looking ahead to a future Flora update, Aabesh shared that the V2 Flora Pod was on track to be released in Fall 2024 and would be “40% smaller, more battery efficient, and overall a higher-tech product.”
The future looks bright for Aabesh and we can’t wait to check back in for another Flora update!
In the meantime, you can check out our other company updates from Season 15 Episode 14 by following the links below!
For even more on companies and products, be sure to stop by our Season 15 Products Page before you go!
Andrew Smith is the founder and owner of Shark Tank Recap. He is a longtime Shark Tank fan that has been watching it for years and has seen every episode multiple times. His friends know him as the Shark Tank expert, because he can answer any question about the show! His favorite Shark Tank products are Bertello's pizza oven and Bug Bite Thing!