It's official: the cast for the newest season of Shark Tank has been announced, and actor Kevin Hart will be among the prestigious lineup. He will be joined by business magnates Emma Grede and Nirav Tolia, as well as Peter Jones of the BBC sister show Dragons' Den. Grede is the CEO and co-founder of Good American and also a founding partner of SKIMS. Tolia is the co-founder of Nextdoor. They will be joining returning guest shark Daniel Lubetzky.
In case you're unfamiliar with the series, Shark Tank is all about would-be small business entrepreneurs pitching their million-dollar ideas to a panel of experts in order to get the funding required to pursue their dreams. Sometimes they present sound, strategic plans and win millions for their efforts, but not always. At times, the business ideas are so ludicrous and guaranteed to fail that they get a healthy dose of tough love and savvy business advice from the guest hosts.
Hart is a very successful actor and comedian as well as an investor and entrepreneur. He's best known for his stand-up comedy, the Ride Along movie franchise co-starring Ice Cube, and Central Intelligence co-starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, and will be seen in the upcoming film adaptation of the Borderlands video game franchise directed by Eli Roth. But Hart has taken a different approach in recent years by investing his millions in sports nutrition products as well as his own Laugh Out Loud Comedy production company.
Shark Tank has received four Emmy awards for Outstanding Structured Reality Program and is a co-production of MGM Television and Sony Pictures Television. Mark Burnett, Clay Newbill, Yun Lingner, Max Swedlow and Phil Gurin, Brandon Wallace, Mark Cuban, Barbara Corcoran, Lori Greiner, Robert Herjavec, Daymond John, and Kevin O’Leary are the executive producers of the series, based on the Japanese Dragons’ Den format created by Nippon.
The thirteenth season of Shark Tank premieres October 8 at 8 p.m. ET on ABC. Episodes will be available for streaming the next day on Hulu.