Breathometer Category: Medical Device Manufacturer Official Site: Breathometer.com Wikipedia: Breathometer Address: Description: A manufacturer of breath anaysis products including models intended to analyze blood alcohol content. They were marketed as helping people make better decisions about driving after drinking alcohol. Page Sections: History · Article Index

The following section is an excerpt from Wikipedia's Breathometer page on 2 July 2022, text available via the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Breathometer was a device that claimed to measure someone's blood alcohol content using their iOS and Android smartphones. However, the app proved unreliable, and was shut down by the Federal Trade Commission. Breathometer was founded in September 2013 by Charles Michael Yim, who is the company's current CEO.

Breathometer was founded in 2012 by Charles Michael Yim, a serial entrepreneur who had earlier founded three startup companies including Chatterfly, a mobile loyalty platform for businesses that was acquired by Plum District in December 2011. Yim noted that there were no commercial breathalyzers for the smartphone market, and the only portable breathalyzers commercially available were both expensive and impractical for users to take with them on a night out.

The company was partly funded through preorders collected via an Indiegogo crowd-sourcing campaign, which ran until April 2013. The campaign's original goal was to raise $25,000, but by the time it closed, it had raised over $138,000.

In September 2013, Yim appeared on Shark Tank. He originally asked for $250,000 for a 10% stake in Breathometer, but all five "sharks" ended up investing a total of $1 million for a collective 30% stake in the company.

In 2017, an inquiry by the FTC resulted in a settlement with the company. The FTC charged that the company knew the product frequently underreported BAC levels and knowingly made false marketing claims of accuracy. The app was shut down and customers were required to be notified and offered full refunds. According to the complaint, sales of Original and Breeze totaled $5.1 million. Following the FTC controversy, Mark Cuban called Breathometer the "worst execution" in the history of Shark Tank, blaming the founder's mismanagement of funds.