Roominate Net Worth | Shark Tank

Publish date: 2024-05-26

Roominate Net Worth – $12 million

What is Roominate’s net worth? What happened to Roominate after Shark Tank?

Introduction

Roominate was one of the biggest business success stories of 2014—and Time magazine’s Toy of the Year.

The clever little construction set was invented with girls in mind, allowing them to create real working models through a series of modular building blocks that interlock.

For kids that want to create everything from moving machines to carnival rides—complete with lights and working circuitry—Roominate lets little imaginations run wild.

Unlike the plethora of overly made-up dolls and figurines on the market, Roominate stood out for offering a fun and imaginative way for kids to learn about engineering and technology.

Critics might argue that Roominate doesn’t really teach anything to anyone, but the toy’s founders would beg to differ—they are both engineers who credit building block-style toys with igniting their passion for how things work.

So how did two young engineers go from inventing their dream toy to selling millions of units worldwide?

Here’s what we know.

Who are the founders?

While studying towards a master’s degree in engineering at the prestigious Stanford University in California, Bettina Chen met Alice Brooks.

Alice Brooks – @Getty

The pair became friends, and—at one point during their studies—had bonded over the kinds of toys they enjoyed as kids.

The pair also learned that less than a quarter of women studying at universities worldwide wanted to pursue a major in engineering, science, and other traditionally male-dominated fields.

Essentially, the number of women getting into STEM-related fields was disappointingly low.

What if, thought Bettina and Alice, this had something to do with the kinds of toys young girls played with as they were growing up?

Bettina draws similarities between traditional “girls’ toys” and “boys’ toys.”

Barbie’s house, for example, came ready built—while Lego space stations and Duplo army bases were built by the very kids playing with them.

Alice shared in a 2017 interview that she had desperately wanted a Barbie doll when she was a kid.

“I begged my dad to buy me one, but he gave me a saw instead. I ended up making a doll from wood. It was the worst—but it sparked that passion.”

Bettina and Alice theorized that by encouraging young girls to build the things they played with, they’d be inspired to follow that into a hands-on career later in life.

And so the idea for Roominate was born.

The pair founded Maykah (pronounced like “maker”) Inc. in 2012.

Roominate: what does it do?

Roominate is, at its core, a construction set for 6-10 year old girls.

Each Roominate pack comes with everything a girl needs to build something—building components, working electrical circuits, moving components, you name it.

The playsets are designed to encourage creativity, imagination, and a curiosity for how things work—the polar opposite of being given a ready-made dollhouse.

Not that the duo has anything against dollhouses. In fact, their original playsets were built around them.

Brooks explained in a 2015 interview that the toys still needed to be fun and attractive to girls.

Dollhouses were familiar enough to be appealing, but challenging and unique enough to bring a new level of fun to play.

The Launch

Like any millennial business in need of funding, the two engineering students turned to Kickstarter with their concept.

They did well, maxing out their funding goal and launching production on the first round of products at the end of 2012.

Radioshack picked up their line, followed soon after by a lucrative agreement with Toys R Us across the US.

Within 18 months of Roominate’s official production launch, Maykah Inc. had grossed $1.8 million in sales.

It was time to enter the big leagues, which meant two things for the dynamic duo:

They needed business mentors, and

They needed more money.

Fortunately, the Angel investors on ABC’s Shark Tank had both.

Into the Shark Tank

Bettina and Alice took Roominate to the world in season 6, episode 2 of Shark Tank in 2014.

They were looking for an investment of $500,000 in exchange for 5% equity in the Roominate brand.

This wasn’t the girls’ first rodeo—they’d been living and breathing their product for two years at this point.

The pitch went smoothly, although Kevin O’Leary, Robert Herjavec, and Barbara Corcoran bowed out when it came time to make an offer.

Both Lori Greiner—of QVC fame—and Mark Cuban knew a good investment when they saw it. The pair eventually agreed to invest $500,000 for a 5% stake in the company.

How is the company performing now?

With Cuban and Greiner’s backing, the company expanded into more educational tools, led in part by Mark Cuban’s expertise in branding and development.

The company returned to Kickstarter to crowdfund the release of rPower—an app-controlled hub that connects the various light and power circuits in the Roominate universe. It raised just over a million dollars.

Expansion was happening at a bricks and mortar level for Roominate, too.

Brooks and Chen signed a contract with Walmart to allow distribution of their products in 800 stores across the US—a contract that would go on to increase sales by millions of dollars per annum.

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