SharkNinja, Inc.

Formerly	Euro-Pro Operating LLC
Type	Public
Traded as	NYSE: SN
Industry	Small Home Appliances
Founded	1994 (1994)
Founder	Mark Rosenzweig
Headquarters	Needham, Mass., USA
Key people	Mark Barrocas (Chief Executive Officer)
Brands	Shark, Ninja
Number of employees	2,800
Website	www.sharkninja.com

SharkNinja, Inc. is a global product design and technology company based in Needham, Massachusetts.^[1][2]

Founded in 1994 by Mark Rosenzweig and led by CEO Mark Barrocas, who joined the company in 2008 as President, the company's name is formed by combining its two primary brands: Shark and Ninja.

SharkNinja's product portfolio spans 27 household sub-categories, across Cleaning, Cooking, Food Preparation, Home Environment and Beauty.

SharkNinja has grown from less than $250 million in net sales for the 12 months ended March 31, 2008 to over $3.7 billion in net sales for the fiscal year end of December 31, 2022.^[3]

SharkNinja is a U.S. public company listed on the NYSE^[4] with more than 2,800 employees located in nine countries and across 25 offices. The company possesses a portfolio of over 3,000 patents in force in various jurisdictions, including the United States, Canada, China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, the United Kingdom, Germany, and France.^[3]

History

The company has its origins through Euro-Pro Operating LLC in 1994, when Mark Rosenzweig of Montreal, whose family had run the business for generations prior to its incorporation, developed steam cleaners and upright vacuums. In 2003, Rosenzweig moved the headquarters from Montreal to Needham, Massachusetts.^[5][6]

The Shark brand was founded in 2007 by Rosenzweig with the launch of the No-Loss-of-Suction vacuum technology. Shortly thereafter, the executive bench was expanded to include Mark Barrocas as SharkNinja's president, driving the launch of the Ninja brand in 2009.^[3]

The company changed its name in 2015 to capitalize on its brand names' prominence and popularity.^[7] In 2013 the company registered an entity in the United Kingdom and began selling products in the UK under the Shark brand.^[8]

In 2017, CDH Private Equity^[9] acquired a stake in the company.^[2][10] It was then structured as a subsidiary of JS Global, an investment holding company.^[11] SharkNinja accounted for almost half of JS Global's revenue in 2018.^[12]

On July 31, 2023, SharkNinja completed its separation from JS Global and became an independent public company, with its ordinary shares trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “SN.”^[13]

Products

Lawsuits

In 2014, Dyson sued SharkNinja for infringement of three vacuum technology patents, but after four years courts ruled the patents had not been infringed.^[14]

In 2019, SharkNinja sued the manufacturer of the Emeril Lagasse Pressure AirFryer for patent infringement, but the case was dismissed.^[14]

In January 2021, iRobot sued SharkNinja for false advertising and patent infringement related to robotic vacuum cleaners. As of March 2023, the case is still pending before the United States International Trade Commission.^[14]

In October 2023, SharkNinja was sued over an allegedly misleading advertisement claiming that their frying pans, which are coated using titanium and ceramic plasma for an extremely scratch-proof and non-stick surface, are "heated to 30,000 °F (16,600 °C; 16,900 K)", which is about 3 times the effective temperature of the Sun (9,930 °F [5,499 °C; 5,772 K]^[15]) and 6 times the boiling point of aluminum (4,478 °F [2,470 °C; 2,743 K]). In contrast, the pans are rated for cooking at temperatures only up to 500 °F (260 °C; 533 K).^[16]

References