The duo behind a Kittery-based skincare brand will be swimming with sharks on national television Wednesday.
Cold Current Kelp co-founders Inga Potter and Krista Rosen are among the latest entrepreneurs to pitch their small business to a panel of billionaire investors, or “Sharks,” on ABC’s “Shark Tank.”
Potter and Rosen have been running Cold Current Kelp as a small business since 2021, growing and harvesting their own seaweed from an 800-foot-long offshore farm in Kittery and turning it into skincare products. They sell their line of sugar kelp extract facial oils on their website and in dozens of shops across the Northeast.
It’s an idea that Potter said benefits consumers, the environment and Maine’s working waterfront. Planting kelp in the water is a highly efficient way to absorb carbon dioxide, helping abate the effects of climate change, and Potter — a marine biologist by trade — also thinks the business could help expand the kelp farming industry at large.
When Potter and Rosen applied to be on “Shark Tank” a little over a year ago, they didn’t think much of it. They just wanted to see what would happen.
“Every other person you talk to when you have a product says, ‘You need to go on “Shark Tank,” you need to go on “Shark Tank.”’ You think kinda to yourself, ‘Yeah, right,’” Potter said.
Then, in March, they got a call from a producer interested in hearing more, and in June, Rosen and Potter were on their way to Atlanta to pitch to the panel of influential investors.
“We’re a pretty small company,” Potter said. “We don’t currently have any investors, so this was a very new experience for us.”
For a few months, Rosen and Potter worked with the “Shark Tank” team, learning the ins and outs of pitching, vetting numbers and designing their set. They practiced their pitch in front of family and friends, “probably ad nauseum,” Potter said.
Several Maine entrepreneurs have pitched their ideas on “Shark Tank” over the show’s nearly two decades on the air. A handful, including two Scarborough natives’ lobster food truck business, secured major investments. Others, like a Scarborough High grad’s cure for bed head — which was mocked by the Sharks as “totally unnecessary” — weren’t as successful.
Cold Current Kelp’s co-founders tried not to have high expectations going into the pitch, and they can’t say anything about the outcome until the episode airs, but Potter said it was a great opportunity for the business.
“I trust in the process. I can’t really say more than that,” she laughed.
“Shark Tank” airs at 10 p.m. Wednesday on ABC.