This is the second entry in our No Deal, No Problem series, honest looks at Shark Tank founders who walked away with nothing on camera and did fine anyway. This one is about the largest single offer the show had ever made at the time, and the three sisters who looked at it and said no.
The Pitch
In January 2015, Dawoon Kang, Arum Kang, and Soo Kang pitched Coffee Meets Bagel, a dating app built around slower, more curated matches instead of endless swiping. Mark Cuban made an offer for the entire company, 30 million dollars, the biggest number the show had ever put on the table. To most people watching at home, turning that down looked insane. The sisters felt the company was worth more than Cuban’s number implied, and they said no.
The Backlash
The reaction was immediate and harsh. The sisters received dozens of emails after the episode aired calling them crazy, greedy, and stupid. Arum Kang later described the experience directly, saying it was one of the first times she felt they were being attacked partly because of their gender, rather than simply because of the business decision itself. Turning down 30 million dollars on national television is a decision that invites strong opinions from strangers, and these three got the full force of it.
The Real Numbers Since Then
Coffee Meets Bagel kept raising money on its own terms after the show, pulling in more than 23.2 million dollars across five funding rounds, including a 12 million dollar Series B in 2018 led by Atami Capital. Co-founder Arum Kang confirmed in late 2025 that the company has been profitable since 2020, a real milestone most venture backed startups never reach. The company now brings in roughly 36 million dollars in annual revenue, mostly through in-app purchases and premium subscriptions, and carries a valuation of more than 150 million dollars with over 60 employees. It has also expanded aggressively into Asia, and YouGov data from both 2024 and 2025 ranked it the second most used dating app in Singapore, part of a stated goal to become the top dating app across six Asian markets.
How They Actually Did It
Coffee Meets Bagel built its identity around being the opposite of the swipe heavy dating apps that dominated the category, positioning itself as a slower, more intentional alternative sometimes described as the anti-Tinder. Instead of an endless feed of profiles, users get a small number of curated matches each day, a design choice meant to push toward quality conversations over volume. That focus on safety, quality, and intentional matching, the same words the founders used to explain their rejection of Cuban’s offer, became the actual product strategy the company built its growth around, rather than a talking point they abandoned once the cameras were off.
Are They Actually Glad They Said No?
Unlike some rejection stories where the founder gives a carefully diplomatic non-answer, the Kang sisters have been direct and consistent about this one. Dawoon Kang told Business Insider in 2018 that getting Mark Cuban to benchmark the company at 30 million dollars was itself a huge validation of the work they had done, and added, now more than ever, I’m so, so, so convinced that was the right decision. Arum Kang has echoed the same sentiment, saying she is glad they stayed true to the original reason they started the company, built around safety, quality, and intentional relationships rather than growth at any cost.
Asked directly by a local news station whether things might have gone differently with Cuban on board, Arum Kang gave an answer that captures the whole story well. If we had those guys, maybe it could have been different. But at the end of the day, I think we are doing very well without those guys. Nine years and a nine figure valuation later, that is not a hard claim to believe.
Why We Wrote This
This is the second entry in our No Deal, No Problem series, following The Bouqs Company’s rejection story. For the fuller picture of how Shark Tank actually works, read our earlier pieces on Shark Tank’s biggest deals and myths, the failure stories behind the show, and the founders who regretted the deals they did take. If you want to understand more about how we approach stories like this one, visit our Brand Guidelines page, or learn more about what Wolvra stands for on our About Us page. If you have a correction, an update, or a rejected pitch we should cover next, our Contact Us page is open.