4 Details About Return Home From Shark Tank
Sometimes, the business moguls on "Shark Tank" consider investing in companies that make things like cool pairs of shoes or good things to eat; in this case, the Sharks are mulling over a company that sells your eternal resting place. Return Home is a funeral service offering Terramation — a special, natural form of human composting that turns a dead human body into soil over the span of 30 days. The composted body, with nonbiodegradable parts removed, is then either returned to a person's loved ones or to the wilderness of Washington state where it can continue to help make green young things grow. The process is a little more complicated than that, of course, but it can help a deceased person return to the earth in a much more environmentally friendly way than cremation or traditional burial. It even allows families to place organic matter — such as cake, or candy, or letters — with the person. While it's currently not a legal way to dispose of human remains nationwide, it's beginning to gain attention as a possibility for those who want to do as little damage to the environment as possible on their way out.
Here are some fresh facts about the folks behind Return Home, its roots, and its previous adventures in fundraising.
Return Home is the world's first-ever large-scale human composting facility
Return Home took root in June of 2021. Upon its opening, it became the first large-scale human composting facility, and only the second facility for human composting in existence worldwide. Micah Truman, the company's founder, came up with the idea as a result of the practice being made legal in Washington state in 2021. On their official website, Micah Truman explains how a passionate conversation between himself, his mother, and his friends resulted in him taking up the cause when he realized how important this form of bodily disposal was to them. It took years of hard work to make the location a reality. The company describes how he went about consulting with soil scientists, HVAC specialists, embalmers, engineers, and funeral directors to create clothing and containers which would organically biodegrade and help the body in question do the same.
As time went on, a full-fledged service came to be, with a facility fully wired with sound, large murals, and natural foliage brought in to create a more comfortable surrounding. It offers a bathing room that allows mourners to wash their loved ones' hair and body for the final time, as well as a lying-in room for memorial services.
All of that hard work has resulted in Return Home being named the 2022 Washington State Funeral Home of the Year and winning the National Funeral Director Association's Pursuit of Excellence Award the same year.
Return Home is fighting the good fight to make human composting legal nationwide
Since human composting is currently legal in only seven states, Return Home has been helping urge legislators to make the practice available to mourners on a state-by-state basis. The practice has been blocked in Minnesota, Maine, Hawaii, and Delaware, while legislation has recently been introduced in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Illinois to legalize human composting. In October 2022, California legalized the process and New York joined them in January 2023. Washington, Colorado, Vermont, and Nevada are the other states where a person can have their body composted if they choose.
Working with the #Idratherbecompost movement, Return Home urges consumers to contact their local state legislature to bring about further change and provides a template for their customers to do so. Staff members at Return Home have also testified before the Maine State Funeral Board in support of legislative change.
The company has a rare five-star rating on Yelp
It seems that Return Home is quite popular with Seattle-based mourners. It currently has a rare five-star ranking on Yelp. While that perfect score is only based on five reviews, those five customers applaud the staff's compassion, fair rates, and the facility itself. There's been heavy plaudits from customers who believe they were treated humanely and were happy to carry out their relative's last request after touring the place.
"I wasn't expecting the emotions to hit me on the way out. But they were really good tears," said Yelp user Darren C after visiting the facility. Wenn C. testified about the experience of composting her daughter, whom she states is the youngest person to be composted by the company yet. She gave the staff high marks for helping her through the process and for allowing her to conduct visits with her daughter during the month-long composting process. "She will be living in flowers, trees, plants, and she will also return to the ocean, and earth. The gratitude I feel for this place is too huge for this review," she wrote.
At least one customer said that the staff at Return Home helped them when they decided to go with a different option, which definitely shows a capacity to put compassion for folks in mourning ahead of making a buck.
They raised over $600,000 on StartEngine in 2022
Return Home previously attempted to raise funds. In 2022, they joined StartEngine where they raised over $675,000. Of that amount, $250,000 was raised during the first three days. StartEngine allows customers to give funds to companies they like by buying equity in them. The perks therein depend upon the fundraiser. It appears that Return Home offered a higher percentage to those who bought into the StartEngine at early dates. There's no word as to whether or not the company has gone back to being fully private in the year since the fundraiser, or if they are still co-owners with those who invested in the StartEngine.
Return Home has a lively social media presence, especially on their Instagram, which alternates between lighthearted fare and honest examinations of the process of body composting. The account often features their comfort dog, Dixie Barbara. And the Return Home team definitely seems to be excited about their "Shark Tank" appearance judging from their social media posts about it.
Did they successfully attract a Shark to their waters? Or are they on their way to the list of Shark Tank companies that don't even exist anymore?
What happened to Return Home on Shark Tank?
It can't be said that Micah Truman doesn't come across as passionate about the service Return Home provides. From the moment he enters the "Shark Tank" with certified funeral director Katey Housan to his mic-drop of a closing line ("The way we're dying is killing us!"), it's difficult to not get swept up in his enthusiasm for saving the planet. It's just too bad that this enthusiasm has a price tag of $40 million.
The proposed $40 million valuation for Return Home proves to be a non-starter for the company's pitch. The sharks are flummoxed by Truman's proposed buy-in price of $2 million for a meager equity offer of 5%, and even more so when they learn that Truman somehow previously raised nearly $5 million at a valuation of about $20 million. The fact that he chose to double that valuation before taping despite the fact that Return Home has yet to turn a profit doesn't help win any of the investors over.
Suffice it to say, Return Home is fighting an uphill battle from the moment Truman states his asking price and his inability to delineate why his company deserves it isn't helping. One by one, the Sharks bow out (and Lori Greiner takes the opportunity to plug a more successful "Shark Tank" funerary alum, Parting Stone), sending Return Home on a funeral march of its own out of the "Shark Tank."