Good Company

Pup Stack Walks Out of Shark Tank With Two Sharks on Board

The father-daughter founders of a portable dog anchor fielded bids from Kendra Scott, Lori Greiner, and Kevin O'Leary before landing a joint investment from Steven Bartlett and Scott in his Shark Tank debut.

By Good Company Editorial Desk

Pup Stack logo

The News

The Pup Stack, a portable weighted “dog anchor” for small dogs, earned a joint investment from Guest Shark Steven Bartlett and Kendra Scott on Season 18, Episode 3 of Shark Tank, which aired Wednesday, October 7. The father-daughter founder team of Kayla Zibricky and Brian Zibricky entered the tank seeking $150,000 for a 10 percent equity stake, an implied $1.5 million valuation, and left with two celebrity investors.

The product is a direct-to-consumer anchored tie-out that solves a problem familiar to anyone with a small dog and an unfenced yard. It is a weighted base with a 20-foot retractable tie-out line that locks at any length, plus built-in storage and food and water bowls, according to ABC’s episode guide. The 360-degree rotating design helps prevent tangles, the expandable base lets owners add weight as a puppy grows, and it is recommended for most dogs up to 40 pounds. Buyers enter their dog’s weight during the online sales flow and the company adds the right amount of weight to the order, according to Inc.’s recap of the episode. The anchor sells for $124.99 in black, pink, or white, and the company also sells extra weights and plush toys.

The bidding was a rare multi-Shark affair. Kendra Scott countered with $150,000 for 25 percent, a $600,000 valuation, calling the founders’ initial valuation “cuckoo crazy,” according to Inc. Bartlett, the host of the “The Diary of a CEO” podcast making his debut as a Guest Shark, countered with $200,000 for 20 percent, or a $1 million valuation. Lori Greiner proposed going in on the deal with Bartlett, as did Scott, while Kevin O’Leary said he would take the founders’ original $1.5 million offer of $150,000 for 10 percent. Bartlett asked the founders which of the two female Sharks he should partner with, and they chose Bartlett and Scott as joint investors.

Why It Matters

Television remains the single fastest trust accelerator in the pet products business, and this deal is a case study in why. Pup Stack is a genuinely new category: as one trade tracker noted, it never fit neatly into the usual buckets of leashes, tie-outs, or gates, which left it a founder-run, side-hustle business four years after its Kickstarter launch. A Shark Tank deal changes the distribution math overnight, converting a niche crowdfunding product into a nationally recognized brand in a single broadcast.

Bartlett’s pitch to the founders was as revealing as the deal itself. He warned that the brand’s near-total reliance on Meta’s social platforms for customer growth meant it was standing on “a tectonic plate that can shake at any time,” and said removing that risk “knowing how to do that at scale, globally, is what I have a black belt in,” according to Inc. Even a TV success story begins with a channel-concentration problem, and paid social dependence is the quiet vulnerability across much of the pet industry.

The joint-investor structure matters too. Bartlett, a former participant in Dragon’s Den (the United Kingdom and Canada’s version of Shark Tank), brings global consumer-marketing reach, while Scott brings a celebrity consumer brand with deep retail and wholesale muscle. For a product that has lived entirely online, that pairing hints at where Pup Stack may go next: beyond its own checkout page and into the mass retail aisles where the anchor category does not yet exist.

The Numbers

The deal math tells the whole negotiation in one line: the founders asked $150,000 for 10 percent ($1.5 million valuation), Scott said the number was $150,000 for 25 percent ($600,000), Bartlett split the difference at $200,000 for 20 percent ($1 million), and O’Leary stood pat at the founders’ original ask. The exact terms of the joint Bartlett-Scott investment were not reported.

Pup Stack’s origin story is pure crowdfunding: Brian Zibricky launched the product on Kickstarter in October 2022 with a $10,000 goal and raised $28,486 from 256 backers, according to trade coverage of the pitch. The path from prototype to production ran through 2023, when the company says it completed design, sourcing, and sampling and reached mass production. The product’s patents tell the same slow-build story: Brian filed for a patent on September 14, 2022 and it was granted on August 12, 2025.

Today’s price ladder is modest and clearly DTC-native: $124.99 for the anchor, extra weights at $19.99, plush toys at $14.99 individually or $22.49 as a combo, according to episode coverage. The addressable constraint is the product’s 40-pound ceiling: the average American dog is far bigger than the small breeds the current anchor serves, so a heavier version would roughly double the per-household market.

What To Watch

First, watch whether the founders go full time. Bartlett made that a condition of his interest, saying he was focused on how the brand could grow if the two stopped running it as a side hustle. A full-time commitment is the clearest signal this deal closes and converts.

Second, watch the retail rollout. The company sells through its own site today, and two consumer celebrities just bought in. If Scott’s retail network gets Pup Stack onto store shelves, it stops being a TV anecdote and becomes a real category in the anchored-tie-out space that it currently has almost entirely to itself.

Third, watch the weight range. The 40-pound limit is the product’s defining engineering constraint, and moving up the weight scale is the cleanest path to a bigger market.

Fourth, watch whether the Shark Tank effect sticks. The episode aired October 7, the Inc. recap landed October 9, and search interest around the episode usually decays within weeks. The companies that convert TV moments into durable businesses are the ones that use the window to fix channels, which is exactly what Bartlett says he plans to do with Pup Stack’s Meta dependence.

Sources

  • Shark Tank’s Steven Bartlett Just Backed This Genius Pet Product (Inc., October 9, 2026): https://www.inc.com/brian-contreras/steven-bartlett-shark-tank-investment-pet-product-pup-stack/91416909
  • The Businesses and Products from Season 18, Episode 3 of Shark Tank (ABC): https://abc.com/news/40777119-58a3-4f4e-8ec2-9a047e38cee4/category/2887649
  • Pup Stack Dog Leash Anchor (All Shark Tank Products): https://allsharktankproducts.com/pet-care/pup-stack-dog-leash-anchor/
  • Shark Tank: Updates on Pup Stack, Nutcase, ZALT, and UnderWarmer (Movie Delic): https://moviedelic.com/shark-tank-updates-season-18-episode-3/