Whatever Happened To Illumibowl – Toilet Night Light After Shark Tank Season 7?

If you frequently find yourself using the bathroom in the middle of the night, you're more than familiar with this situation: You crawl out of bed, still half asleep, and meander your way to the bathroom. Once you get there, however, your only choice is to go in the dark or turn on the bright overhead lights that wake you up and make it feel impossible to get back to sleep. To help solve this common problem, Matt Alexander and Mike Kannely developed Illumibowl, a motion-activated LED light that illuminates the bowl of your toilet. They presented their invention on "Shark Tank" during Season 7.

Essentially, the Illumibowl is a small, battery-powered night light that's installed directly over the side of the toilet. When someone walks by, it lights up in one of several customizable colors, allowing you to see what you're doing in the bathroom without having to turn on the lights. This creation might be useful, but long-term success requires much more than just an idea.

While on Season 7, Episode 21 of "Shark Tank," the creators behind Illumibowl asked the panel of potential investors for $100,000 in exchange for 15% equity in their business, a move that valued Illumibowl at over $660,000. The pair had just gotten started with the business, but they had already received $6,500 in pre-orders and pulled off a Kickstarter campaign without any formal advertising.

It's clear that the stars of "Shark Tank" liked the idea, at least as a novelty, but most of the Sharks dropped out, even when the pair revealed they were also working on a way to project images with these lights. Kevin O'Leary, however, wanted in. He offered the duo $100,000 — their original ask — in exchange for a 25% stake in the company. After a bit of back and forth, and once they realized they didn't have any other potential bidders, the pair accepted O'Leary's offer as funding to bulk up their inventory.

After appearing on "Shark Tank," Matt Alexander and Mike Kannely returned the next season to give viewers an update on their progress. In this segment, they revealed that Kevin O'Leary's $100,000 investment allowed them to both produce the amount of product they needed to fulfill orders and move their operation out of one of the founders' spare bedrooms into a more professional space. They also successfully made it onto shelves at Bed Bath & Beyond stores across the country, which quickly inflated their sales to an impressive $7 million over the course of a few months.

"I've done a lot of 'Shark Tank' deals. It's really rare when a couple of entrepreneurs like Mike and Matt blow it up so big so fast," Kevin O'Leary said during the update segment on Season 8, Episode 2. It was clear the pair had already achieved an impressive level of success, but they shared that their next steps were to work their way into even more in-person locations, like Walmart and Walgreens.

Currently, it appears Illumibowl is still in business and doing well, though the company was acquired by Spark Innovation. The company's toilet lights are available to purchase online via Amazon and the company's website, as well as in-person at Ace Hardware, Walmart, and The Home Depot for varying prices.

It looks like the company's most popular product is still the basic light to help upgrade your toilet setup, but the founders also followed through on their idea to create a device that projects images into the toilet bowl. Currently, there are no options available to project Kevin O'Leary's face or the logo of your rival sports team as the pair suggested in their original pitch, but you do have the ability to choose between four designs: a bullseye, rose, fish, and, of course, poop. Additionally, the company has developed two more bathroom lighting products: an LED faucet light and a version of the classic Illumibowl light that claims to fight germs.

Since entering into an agreement with Spark Innovation, Illumibowl hasn't been active on social media or teasing any new product. That doesn't mean, however, that the company isn't working on or tossing around any new ideas. The founders of Illumibowl didn't get a patent on their toilet light idea, so the company is also facing competition from other companies that are willing to sell a similar product at a cheaper price, like this Energizer Toilet Light Motion Sensor available for purchase from Amazon for under $11. Because of this, Illumibowl products have seen some varying prices, but it's unknown if the company is working to differentiate its product from others available on the market.

Currently, it's unclear what's in the cards for Illumibowl and the company's founders in the future. According to Linkedin, it looks like both Matt Alexander and Mike Cannely have been using their Illumibowl profits to branch into new territory with a shower diffuser company, Oasis Diffusers, but they no longer have any involvement with Illumibowl.