New Milford Couple Featured On Shark Tank Lands $350K Investment

NEW MILFORD, CT — A New Milford couple recently accepted a $350,000 offer from investor Kendra Scott for a 20% stake in their business on the ABC show Shark Tank, according to WTNH News-8. Kevin and Laurie Lane pitched their sand-and-snow-castle-building toy Create a Castle in a show aired Oct. 7.

Scott outbid co-star Daymond John in a competition to get a slice of the business. Scott said Create a Castle is a great product with incredible growth potential, according to WTNH News-8.

The Shark Tank investment has been six years in the making. Create a Castle is a split-mold design to allow for both sand and snow castle building, making it a year-round product.

The company's website describes how the product came to be: "The concept for Create A Castle came to founder Kevin Lane during a 2016 vacation at Laguna Beach, California. After watching a dad and his young son struggle unsuccessfully to finish their castle, this web developer and super fan of castle building, started mulling over ideas to develop a more efficient and less time consuming way to construct imaginative sand creations.

"Kevin realized that building an ornate castle with a shovel, a 5 gallon bucket and a couple of basic tools took far too long to keep the attention of any child. What if a bucket was pre-molded with a detailed brick pattern? What if you filled it with sand from the top instead of the bottom? What if you simply split the mold apart instead of lifting it? What if it was all packaged up and easy to transport due to its split mold, patent pending stackable system? After combining all of these ideas, Create A Castle became a reality!"

Create a Castle won The Toy Association's Toy of the Year Award in 2020, The Danbury News-Times reported. As the product became more popular, the company forged relationships with leading retailers like Walmart, Sam's Club, and Dick's Sporting Goods.

From there, the Lanes took the product to Shark Tank. The show gives fledgling entrepreneurs the chance to pitch their businesses to "the sharks," a group of wealthy investors that often includes celebrities. The show is in its fourteenth season.

To find out more about the Create a Castle product, check out the company's website.

The couple isn't the first from Connecticut to be featured on Shark Tank. Last year, a Wallingford couple was in the Christmas episode of the show, pitching “Santa’s Enchanted Mailbox” to the sharks.

See related: Wallingford Family To Be Featured On 'Shark Tank' Holiday Episode