The pitch
What walked into the Den
SmartyPantz ran live escape rooms out of Vancouver, the kind where a locked group races a clock to solve their way out.
Dan Civiero and Chris Ricard pitched it in season 10 with a big number: $500,000 for just 10 percent, which set an implied value of $5 million on a company that was still young.
After the show
What happened next
The escape rooms appear to have wound down. The company domain refused connection in July 2026.
Our read
The Hub verdict
A $500,000 ask for only 10 percent is an aggressive $5 million valuation for an escape-room chain, and trade reporting from the time describes a pitch that struggled to satisfy the Dragons on the financials. Escape rooms are a capacity business: a room can only be booked so many times a night, so revenue per location is capped by the clock and a five-million price has to be carried by expansion rather than the venues already open. The chain has since wound down, with the Vancouver location listed as closed and the company domain no longer answering.
Aggressive valuation, a difficult pitch, and a chain now closed
