Bottle Bright: Here's What Happened After Shark Tank

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Cleaning water bottles is a pain. The narrow opening prevents dishwashers from washing them adequately, and if you frequently use them for anything other than water, stubborn stains build up quickly. This dilemma drove Bottle Bright founders Seth Friedman and Justin Koehneke to develop their product and eliminate the fuss around washing bottles effectively.

While harsh chemicals like bleach are effective at cleaning bottles, Friedman and Koehneke wanted to develop a safe, organic alternative with the same power but none of the danger. Made from plant- and mineral-based ingredients sourced in the U.S., a Bottle Bright tablet just needs 30 minutes to soak in a bottle of water, followed by a quick rinse, to leave it as fresh and clean as when you bought it. People saw the potential: Bottle Bright sold $110,000 worth of product in the year before its "Shark Tank" appearance and produced its formula under the labels of two other companies, despite Koehneke having a company of his own, Clean Ethics.

However, the founders wanted to see sales grow under their own brand and eventually become a household name. To do so, Friedman and Koehneke knew they needed a bit of investment and plenty of expertise. So, the Bottle Bright founders visited the Sharks, seeking $75,000 for a 15% stake in their company.

Seth Friedman and Justin Koehneke had a tough road ahead. The struggle of cleaning water bottles was nothing new to the Sharks — Clean Bottle, a water bottle that could be taken apart, had appeared in Season 3 of the show.

However, few companies had quite as rough a start as Bottle Bright did on Season 6, Episode 14. After their initial pitch, Shark Kevin O'Leary dismissed Friedman and Koehneke, saying most folks wouldn't care about their product. Robert Herjavec quickly chimed in that the private-label deals had sabotaged their chances of developing brand recognition and loyalty. Bottle Bright's problems swiftly compounded after Koehneke revealed that the company had lost $100,000 in 2013 after a large shipment was damaged in transit.

Despite O'Leary, Herjavec, Barbara Corcoran, and Mark Cuban all dropping out due to a lack of faith, Shark Lori Greiner saw potential. She wanted to generate awareness of Bottle Bright through her home shopping network, QVC, and sell its products via her initiative with Bed Bath & Beyond. Her original offer was $75,000 for 35% of the company, on the condition that the money be used to fulfill purchase orders, not expand administration as Friedman and Koehneke had hoped. The founders countered with a 25% stake for the investment, but the three eventually settled on 33.3%, striking a deal that would help Bottle Bright immensely.

It seems that the deal between Lori Greiner and Bottle Bright paid dividends. Bottle Bright's biggest problem was never its efficacy but its reach. With Greiner's assistance, the cleaning tablets finally reached enough people to become a profitable product.

While Bottle Bright initially focused on online sales and even dipped into philanthropy — donating a tablet for every one sold — Greiner's assistance helped land a deal that put its products in over 50 Bed Bath & Beyond locations by 2014. Over the next five years, the company steadily grew its presence after achieving its goal of expanding into retail. Enough so that a surprising development occurred.

Despite the other Sharks showing little interest in Bottle Bright, HydraPak — a purveyor of athletics-focused portable drinking products — acquired the business in 2019. It seemed a match made in heaven, as founders Seth Friedman and Justin Koehneke were both avid mountain bikers in their home of Burlington, Vermont. Their original pitch had focused on the difficulties of cleaning not only bottles but also hydration packs, due to their odd shapes and tiny valves. Though both founders exited the company, HydraPak proved to be a strong endorser of their product.

If you're sick of figuring out how to wash your Hydro Flask or tired of cleaning your thermos with ice and salt, never fear — Bottle Bright is still here. If anything, its reach expanded after the acquisition. You can now purchase various-sized packs of its tablets from Amazon. Bottle Bright cleaning tablets are also available on its website, which offers 30-day returns and free shipping for orders over $22, as well as on HydraPak's online store. If retail is more your thing, you can also find the tablets at major stores such as Cabela's, Bass Pro Shops, and REI.

Despite its acquisition, Bottle Bright still boasts the same levels of safety and sustainability that gave it value in the first place. It is Safer Choice certified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and made in America — two of the company's original founding commitments. But with such an effective product, why limit it to just water bottles? Bottle Bright now sells gear-cleaning tablets, boasting three times the cleaning power while still using only environmentally-conscious ingredients.

Bottle Bright has also expanded into brushes for cleaning drinking vessels — an interesting move from a company that claims its product makes such tools unnecessary. Nonetheless, between the organic scrubbing power of its tablets and its foray into cleaning tools, Bottle Bright shows every sign of being a healthy, profitable brand for HydraPak.

When founders move on from their business, they rarely stay static for long — especially not ones who turned a company that lost $100,000 in its third year into a brand valuable enough to be acquired. Though the exact amount HydraPak paid for Bottle Bright remains unclear, creating any business worthy of acquisition is a huge accomplishment that's likely to be followed by many more.

Justin Koehneke appears to have retained his self-starter, entrepreneurial spirit. He founded Heymaker, an email marketing company dedicated to CBD suppliers, in 2020. Overall, Koehneke has focused on email and content marketing after Bottle Bright's acquisition, helping improve the reach of other businesses the way Lori Greiner helped improve the reach of his.

Seth Friedman seems to be keeping a lower profile. No professional social media, websites, or appearances are apparent as of April 2025, and he seems to have gone his separate way from Koehneke.