The pitch
What walked into the Den
Tara Bosch built SmartSweets, a low-sugar candy brand, out of Vancouver, British Columbia, launching it while still in her early twenties.
She opened the Season 12 premiere, episode 1, which aired in 2017, asking for $100,000 for 10%. That ask implied a $1,000,000 valuation for the young candy company.
After the show
What happened next
Every Dragon made an offer. Bosch accepted Jim Treliving's counter of $100,000 for just 5%, half the equity she had put up, which effectively doubled the implied valuation to $2,000,000. It is a textbook example of a bidding war working in the founder's favour.
The story kept climbing after the Den. SmartSweets was acquired by TPG Growth in a deal reported at $360 million USD in 2020, one of the show's standout post-pitch outcomes. The candy is still sold today, with a live checkout confirmed on July 23, 2026.
One note on timing: the deal aired on the Season 12 premiere, and the brand later returned for a Full Circle alumni revisit in a much later season, so you may see SmartSweets tied to more than one appearance.
Our read
The Hub verdict
This is the batch's clinic in how a bidding war rewards a founder. The ask, $100,000 for 10%, valued the brand at $1,000,000. Taking Treliving's counter of the same cash for half the equity reset that to $2,000,000 in a single sentence.
The post-Den arc only sharpens the point: a reported $360 million acquisition a few years later makes both the ask and the on-air valuation look tiny in hindsight. One housekeeping note for readers, the deal belongs to the Season 12 premiere, and a later Full Circle slot is a return visit rather than a fresh pitch.
The rare pitch where a counter-offer doubled the valuation on the spot.
Worth knowing: We anchor the deal to the Season 12 premiere where it actually happened; a later retrospective appearance is a revisit, not a second pitch.
