Dino Don Animatronics Update | Shark Tank Season 12
Dino Don Lessem and his wife Valerie Jones want to bring their life-sized dinosaur animatronics to museums and zoos, with help from the sharks. Will they get a life-sized deal on
If you’re short on time, here’s a quick overview of what happened to Dino Don after
Dino Don appeared on
| Shark: | Result: |
| Mark Cuban | Accepted deal of $500,000 for 25% equity |
| Lori Greiner | No Offer |
| Mark Cuban | No Offer |
| Kevin O’Leary | No Offer |
| Daymond John | No Offer |
Shark Tank Dino Don Update
- Entrepreneur: Don Lessem and Valerie Jones
- Business: Life-sized dinosaur animatronics
- Ask: $500,000 for 10% equity
- Result: $500,000 for 25% equity
- Shark: Mark Cuban
Don and his wife Valerie appeared in the season finale of
Dino Don’s resume extends back to the original Jurassic Park films where he served as the science advisor to the director, Steven Spielberg.
Since then, he’s led excavations of the largest dinosaurs in the world. Further, he’s authored more than 40 books on dinosaurs.
In one of the more interesting pitches on
With their business model, they tour groups of their dinosaurs to zoos and museums. In turn, attendance at these places increases by 15%-50%.
On average, a dinosaur costs Dino Don $5,000 to make, then, they rent them to the zoos and museums. However, since the COVID-19 pandemic, zoos have been struggling so the company wants to set up a gate-sharing program with them.
Additionally, they have 150 animatronic dinosaurs ready to go, plus the largest collection of fossil skeletons. They paid $1 million for their vast collection and believe that renting it would make their money back tenfold.
In the year prior to filming, Dino Don did $1.6 million in sales. Year-to-date, at the time of filming, they’ve done $1.8 million. Of that, they profited $250,000.
Unfortunately, while excited about the idea, the sharks weren’t too enthusiastic when Don started talking about the numbers.
Kevin O’Leary refers to Don as being “all over the map” and doesn’t feel confident that Don can execute, so he backs out.
Daymond John also goes out, because he feels that he can’t add anything to the table.
As for Lori Greiner, she feels that the presentation is a bit lacking, so she goes out as well.
The only shark to make an offer is Mark Cuban, who loves the idea. He offers $500,000, but for 25% of the company, stating he will have to put a lot of work into the business.
At this point, Robert Herjavec goes out, as he refers to Mark’s offer as “generous.”
Don understands this, and accepts Mark’s offer! Now, considering Mark made such a big investment in a pretty unique company, you may want a Dino Don update after
Research for our Dino Don update reveals that the company is thriving, with an annual revenue of $4.2 million! In a recent interview with Technical.ly, they explained that the funding will go towards business operation improvements.
Dino Don also explained that part of it will go to technical upgrades, which will allow the dinosaurs to use Numatic motion control products.
Further, our Dino Don update research found that the company has added hundreds more robots, including birds, ice-age animals, dragons, and more!
Don and Valerie have also used Mark’s money to create a traveling show to help bring their dinosaurs to more and more people. They even have dinosaurs in England, Finland, and a few other countries.
And that’s not all, you can even purchase a dinosaur on the Dino Don website. Be sure to check it out and find out where their animatronics are traveling to next!
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Andrew Smith is the founder and owner of Shark Tank Recap. He is a longtime Shark Tank fan that has been watching it for years and has seen every episode multiple times. His friends know him as the Shark Tank expert, because he can answer any question about the show! His favorite Shark Tank products are Bertello's pizza oven and Bug Bite Thing!