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Inspired by girl with a crutch, this ‘Shark Tank’ inventor built a breakthrough device and won over judges

This contestant's groundbreaking idea sparked a $1 million bidding war on 'Shark Tank'

Entrepreneurs come to the ‘Shark Tank’ stage with the hopes of securing funding for their start-ups, and even in some cases, to achieve fame. Unfortunately, a lot of rookie businesses fail to get a shark on board. However, in rare cases, investors fight amongst themselves to secure a deal they really like. And that was the case for Aadeel Akhtar, who came with great expectations but didn’t leave empty-handed. In season 15, the neuroscientist and electrical engineer came on the show to his prosthetics company, PSYONIC. He began his pitch by explaining what drove him to build his product. He came up with the idea at the age of seven, when he met a girl with a missing limb.

“She was my age, living in poverty in Pakistan, where I was visiting, missing her right leg and using a tree branch as a crutch,” he revealed. “That’s what inspired me to go into [neuroengineering], and that’s why I developed the Ability Hand,” he added. Akhtar, who sought $1 million in exchange for 2% equity in his company, shared more details about his product, claiming that it is the “fastest bionic hand” available on the market. It not only acts as an artificial limb, but also provides touch feedback to the users. “It’s also water resistant and USB-C rechargeable,” he said.

The CEO explained that the objective behind his seeking funds was to increase the start-up’s production capacity, because each product costs $15,000 to make. He had already raised some money earlier to kick-start the company. “We’ve raised 3.6 million so far. We’re actually in the middle of a start engine crowd-funding campaign where we raised 2.2 million,” he added. The crowdfunding approach threw Mark Cuban off and made him skeptical. Robert Herjavec had similar doubts and asked why he didn’t pitch to investors who specialize in healthcare.

“What we’ve seen in [the healthcare] space is that it’s either one of the other. They’re either going into robotics purely or they’re going into the health care field,” Akhtar explained. “This just does not add up to me, so for those reasons, I’m out,” Cuban declared. Herjavec was not convinced either, and said that he was out. However, the other three investors kept his hope alive, and shot a bunch of questions at him, leading to a long negotiation. Kevin O’Leary seemed interested and started talking numbers, and the contestant had all the right answers. However, the judge hesitated over the equity.

“I don’t get out of bed for 2% of anything,” Mr. Wonderful said. “The more successful you are, the more you have to raise, the more I get diluted,” he explained. He offered $1 million for 10% equity in his company, but Akhtar had another offer from Lori Greiner and Daymon John on the table. What followed was an iconic 'Shark Tank' fight.  At one point, O’Leary matched the other offer, which left the contestant both amazed and confused. In the end, all three investors came together and proposed a combined deal of $1 million for 6% equity. “I think we've got a deal,” Akhtar said, happily accepting the offer.