Product Update
Is The Woobles Still in Business? (2026 Update)
Is The Woobles from Shark Tank still around in 2026? The deal it made, the sharks who invested, and where to buy The Woobles today.
The Woobles taught a generation of stressed-out adults to crochet chubby little penguins, and it did it so profitably that Mark Cuban and Lori Greiner fought their way into a joint deal in Season 14. Then the deal quietly never closed, and the company grew like a weed anyway. If you found this page holding a half-finished amigurumi and wondering whether Justine Tiu and Adrian Zhang are still in business, relax. Their kit empire is bigger than it was on air.
The Short Answer
Yes, The Woobles is thriving in 2026. The store at thewoobles.com sells beginner crochet kits in the 30 to 50 dollar range, bundles up to about 180 dollars, and collector boxes, every kit built around the company's signature trick: the first rows come pre-started, so a total beginner never faces the hardest part cold, and step-by-step video tutorials carry them the rest of the way.
The licensing wall is the real tell of how big this brand has become. Current collaborations include Disney's Lilo and Stitch, Harry Potter, Bluey, Minecraft, Peanuts, Hello Kitty, Sonic, Pusheen, Batman, Star Trek, and The Lord of the Rings, among more than a dozen others. Licensors of that caliber do not rent their characters to shaky companies.
The Shark Tank Pitch
Husband-and-wife founders Justine Tiu and Adrian Zhang pitched in Season 14, Episode 2, which aired in September 2022. Tiu, a former Google designer, had turned pandemic crochet lessons into learn-to-crochet kits engineered for absolute beginners, and the pair reported about 5.3 million dollars in revenue in the twelve months before taping, numbers that made the panel sit up.
The ask was modest against that performance: 250,000 dollars for 5 percent, an implied 5 million dollars for the whole company. The sharks saw a profitable e-commerce business with a teachable moat, and the bidding got competitive.
The Deal That Did Not Close
Mark Cuban and Lori Greiner joined forces and won with an over-ask offer: 450,000 dollars for 6 percent, nearly double the founders' requested cash for one extra point of equity. On television, it was one of the friendliest deals of the season.
Off television, it went nowhere. Cuban later confirmed the investment never closed, saying it did not close and that it was the founders' choice, while the couple declined to explain publicly. Whatever the reasoning, the outcome suggests the founders concluded they did not need outside capital, and their subsequent growth backs that up.
From Penguins to Pop Culture Machine
The company's playbook since the show has been licensing plus beginner obsession. Instead of chasing yarn hobbyists, The Woobles keeps recruiting people who have never held a hook, then hands them a Stitch or a Pikachu-adjacent character they already love as motivation to finish. Each new licensed drop brings a fandom's worth of first-time crocheters into the funnel.
Distribution widened too. Tracking coverage reports a retail push that includes Walmart shelf space, layered on top of the direct site and its bundle economics. Kits ship with everything included, yarn, hook, eyes, and the pre-started piece, which keeps the average order high and the refund rate low. It is a craft company run with the discipline of the tech careers the founders left.
The Woobles net worth in 2026
The Woobles publishes no financials. The public anchors are the 5.3 million dollars in pre-show annual revenue the founders disclosed on air, the 7.5 million dollars the accepted-then-abandoned deal terms valued it at, and tracking-site estimates that place more recent annual revenue solidly in the seven figures or better.
Given the scale of the licensing portfolio and the retail expansion, the honest statement is that the business has clearly grown well past its 2022 disclosures, but every specific 2026 figure floating around is an estimate, not an audit.
Where Things Stand Now
The Woobles asked for 250,000 dollars at 5 percent, accepted 450,000 dollars for 6 percent from Cuban and Greiner on air, and then chose to keep the whole company instead of closing the deal.
In 2026 that decision looks shrewd. The store is packed with licensed characters, the tutorials keep minting new crocheters, and the two founders still own their yarn empire outright. The answer to the title question is yes, emphatically.
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Where to buy The Woobles
Still selling as of August 5, 2026. Check today's price and availability.
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See the full The Woobles deal breakdown and term sheet →
