Product Update
Is Miso Media Still in Business? (2026 Update)
Is Miso Media from Shark Tank still around in 2026? The deal it made, the sharks who invested, and where to buy Miso Media today.
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Miso Media built a guitar learning app that listened to you play and gave real time feedback, and Mark Cuban wrote a check for it in Season 3. Twelve months after the episode aired, the company had shut down entirely, and the reason is a genuinely instructive story about chasing the wrong product.
The Short Answer
No, Miso Media is not still in business. The company closed for good in March 2013, almost exactly a year after its Shark Tank episode aired, and there is no surviving app, website, or product to point you toward today.
This is one of the more clear cut closures on this list, with a specific strategic decision that founder Aviv Grill himself has been open about as the turning point.
The Shark Tank Pitch
Miso Media, then known for its guitar learning app under the Miso Music name, pitched in Season 3, Episode 9, out of Santa Monica, California. Founder Aviv Grill asked for 300,000 dollars for 5 percent of the company.
The app used a device's microphone to listen to a user play guitar and gave feedback on timing and accuracy, a genuinely novel use of consumer hardware for music education at the time. Real time pitch and timing detection through a phone's built in microphone was a technically ambitious feature for a mobile app in that era, and it is part of why the pitch generated real post show interest from users looking for a cheaper alternative to private guitar lessons.
The Deal That Closed and the Pivot That Broke It
Mark Cuban offered the full 300,000 dollars for 8 percent equity, a bigger stake than the 5 percent originally pitched, and the deal closed and funded. Unlike several companies on this list, the money actually landed.
What happened next is the real story. Rather than doubling down on the guitar learning app that had generated real interest after the show aired, Miso Media pivoted to building a digital sheet music app instead. It was an aggressive bet on a much bigger, much more difficult market.
The strategic logic at the time was understandable even if it turned out to be wrong. Sheet music is a bigger addressable market than guitar lesson software, and Grill's team likely saw an opportunity to build something with broader appeal across instruments rather than staying niche to guitar players learning through their phone's microphone.
Why the Pivot Killed the Company
Digital sheet music turned out to be a business model that could not work at Miso Media's scale. The company had to pay substantial copyright and licensing fees to the original artists and music publishers behind every piece of sheet music it offered, fees so high that Miso Media could never sell enough volume to turn a profit on the product.
With revenue not covering the licensing costs, the company ran out of money to pay its employees, went through massive layoffs, and officially closed in March 2013, roughly a year to the month after the Shark Tank episode aired. It stands as one of the clearer cautionary tales in the show's history about the danger of walking away from working traction to chase a bigger, unproven market before the underlying unit economics have been tested.
Miso Media net worth in 2026
There is no net worth figure to report for Miso Media, since the company has not existed since March 2013. Any positive valuation figure attached to the brand online would be referring to the pre closure period and does not reflect current reality.
As with any company that shut down and laid off its staff over a decade ago, the accurate answer is that Miso Media has no current financial standing to estimate.
Where Founder Aviv Grill Landed
Between 2012 and 2019, Aviv Grill co-founded multiple video platform companies, staying active in the tech startup world after Miso Media's closure. As of 2026, he works primarily as an investor rather than an operator, a common next step for founders who learn hard lessons from a first venture.
If you found this page wondering whether the guitar app from Season 3 made it, it did not. The Cuban deal closed, the money came in, and a strategic pivot into sheet music licensing is what ultimately sank the company a year later.
Where to buy Miso Media
Still selling as of April 16, 2026. Check today's price and availability.
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See the full Miso Media deal breakdown and term sheet →
