Murrysville FlexScreen owner enters equity partnership with 'Shark Tank' investor

When Joe Altieri was in his Plum garage working on a prototype for a flexible window screen, his vision was to build a successful business.

Getting that business, FlexScreen, to the point where he could garner rapid interest from multiple investors on ABC’s “Shark Tank” turned out to be icing on the cake.

This week, Altieri officially solidified an equity partnership with investor and entrepreneur Lori Greiner, who offered to invest in FlexScreen during Altieri’s “Shark Tank” appearance in early 2020.

“To end up earning the trust, respect and eventual partnership of someone like Lori Greiner was a pipe dream,” Altieri said.

Greiner initially offered Altieri $800,000, with half in cash and half as a credit line for scaling and inventory. Altieri said he plans to use the Murrysville company’s new funds to advance product development, drive marketing and increase the efficiency with which his product is manufactured.

“Lori and her team wanted to do more with us,” he said. “So to have them more intimate with our team, and to have them as a bigger partner, so to speak, is fantastic. The deal that happened on ‘Shark Tank,’ we changed it a little bit, and now she’s officially an equity partner.”

This new partnership was complicated considerably by the coronavirus pandemic. “It has been difficult,” Altieri said. “Lori can’t travel here, we can’t travel to them. So, it’s added some limitations and speed-bumps along the way.”

Advertising and marketing are big advantages of having a partner like Greiner, Altieri said.

“The world is noisy right now,” he said. “So, we’re trying to strategize about when we start to do some advertising, talking about when are we going to start yelling our message and it’s not going to get overshadowed by everything that’s going on.”

Normally, Altieri and FlexScreen staff would be headed to home show conventions and other industry events to tout the product and the partnership. In fact, Altieri said, at many home shows, Greiner has a full aisle dedicated to products she has endorsed via “Shark Tank.”

“It gets attention from major retailers and, of course, that didn’t happen this year — and who knows if it’s going to happen next year,” Altieri said.

For Greiner, the ability to recognize a good thing when she sees it has her confident, whenever she and Altieri start broadcasting FlexScreen’s message, it will come through loud and clear.

“As soon as I saw FlexScreen, I knew it was a winner,” Greiner said. “I loved Joe’s innovative, flexible window screen, and it quickly became clear to me that I was looking at the future of the industry. I’m excited to be on board with Joe and the FlexScreen team.”