GeoOrbital
GeoOrbital is a company from Cambridge, MA, that claims to have invented a better wheel... by incorporating an electric motor into it. The wheel is sold separately from the products that use it, including bicycles and can be installed, the entrepreneur claims, without any tools. (The thought, it is supposed, is that it doesn't require any additional tool beyond what would be required to install a wheel on a bicycle.)
The inventors claim that the wheel is compatible with all existing bikes. They claim the motor can take a bike from zero to twenty miles per hour in sixty seconds. A full charge, they claim, will get one hour of riding.
GeoOrbital has raised $1,260,000 in a Kickstarter campaign and has sold $200,000 in inventory though their website. All sales have been direct to consumer. A single wheel sells for $950.
The entrepreneurs want to expand their business by selling to fleets of bicycles like bike-share programs and police bicycles.
While impressed with the invention, the sharks declined to pursue any offers.
This deal aired on Episode 9.07.