Product Update
Is Caffeindicator Still in Business? (2026 Update)
Is Caffeindicator from Shark Tank still around in 2026? The deal it made, the sharks who invested, and where to buy Caffeindicator today.
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Michael Schiavone pitched a sugar packet that changes color when your coffee is safe to drink, and Kevin O'Leary told him he liked something "nasty" about the strategy of pitting sweetener companies against each other. That bidding-war strategy never actually paid off, and Caffeindicator has been gone for years.
The Short Answer
No. Caffeindicator is not in business today, and hasn't been for a long time. This is one of the earliest deals in the show's history, from Season 1, and it is also one of the clearer failures: the on-air agreement never closed, and the product never reached real retail distribution afterward.
There is no current website, no active retail listing, and no social media presence tied to the brand that we could find. If you are searching for a place to buy this product today, there isn't one.
The Shark Tank Pitch
Caffeindicator appeared in Season 1, Episode 13, pitched from Mt. Joy, Pennsylvania. Founder Michael Schiavone asked for 200,000 dollars for 25 percent equity, valuing the tiny company at 800,000 dollars.
The product itself was a caffeine-detection litmus strip built into a sugar packet, meant to let people traveling or ordering unfamiliar coffee know whether a drink actually had caffeine in it. It is a novelty idea more than a mass-market consumer good, and that showed in how the sharks reacted.
Barbara Corcoran and Daymond John exited early, doubting both that consumers would actually adopt the habit of checking a sugar packet before drinking their coffee, and that a sweetener company would ever put real marketing dollars behind licensing the idea.
The Deal That Got Done
Kevin Harrington offered 200,000 dollars for 50 percent equity, contingent on Schiavone securing a partnership with an actual sweetener company to manufacture and distribute the product at scale. Schiavone accepted the offer on air.
That contingency turned out to be the whole ballgame. According to Shark Tank tracking coverage, the deal with Kevin never closed, and the necessary sweetener company partnership never materialized. Without that partner, there was no path to shelf space, and the product effectively died on the vine.
What Happened After the Cameras Left
Caffeindicator got a short burst of media attention around its air date and then disappeared from public view almost entirely. There is no confirmed later launch, relaunch, or acquisition on record. One theory floated by Shark Tank trackers is that a sweetener company may have looked at the concept and passed, or possibly even acquired the underlying idea quietly just to keep it away from competitors, but that is speculation, not a documented event.
Given that this pitch dates back to Season 1, the company has now had well over a decade to resurface in some form, on Amazon, through a licensing deal, or as a rebrand, and none of that has happened. That length of silence is itself the strongest evidence available that the business simply ended.
Caffeindicator net worth in 2026
There is no credible net worth figure to report for Caffeindicator. The company has no known current revenue, no operating website, and no confirmed business activity of any kind since shortly after its Season 1 appearance. Any net worth estimate for a defunct company with no post-show financial trail would be fabricated, so we are not going to invent one.
The honest framing is that this is a zero, or close enough to it that a specific number would be meaningless.
Where Things Stand Now
Caffeindicator is defunct. The Kevin Harrington deal never closed, the sweetener company partnership it depended on never happened, and the product has had no visible presence for well over a decade. This is one of the clear no answers in the Shark Tank archive, and it matches the kind of quiet failure that happens to a lot of Season 1 and Season 2 pitches once the novelty of the show itself wore off.
If you remembered this one from an old rerun and wanted to know if the sugar packet idea ever made it big, it did not.
It is a useful reminder of how Season 1 deals worked before the show had the polish and post-production support it built up over later years. A lot of those earliest handshakes were genuinely just handshakes, made for TV, with no real diligence or follow-through infrastructure behind them once the studio lights went off.
Where to buy Caffeindicator
Still selling as of January 31, 2026. Check today's price and availability.
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See the full Caffeindicator deal breakdown and term sheet →
