Hopscotch Shark Tank Update: Is It Still in Business?

When Samantha John walked onto the set of Shark Tank during Season 12, she brought a clear and inspiring mission: to make computer programming as fun and accessible for kids as playing their favorite video games.

Her company, Hopscotch, offered an innovative coding app specifically designed for mobile devices like the Apple iPad and iPhone.

Her pitch was a massive success on television, resulting in an exciting on-air handshake with billionaire Mark Cuban. However, as any fan of the show knows, what happens inside the Tank is often just the beginning of the story.

Fast forward to 2026, and the landscape of educational technology has shifted dramatically. With the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and massive gaming platforms like Roblox, where does an independent kids’ coding app stand today?

Here is the complete update on Hopscotch, including the real story behind the Mark Cuban deal, the company’s current financial status, and what the app offers to young learners today.

Quick Facts: Hopscotch Today

Clearing Up the Confusion: Which Hopscotch Is This?

If you search for “Hopscotch” in 2026, you might find some very confusing and conflicting information. That is because there are currently three distinct businesses operating under the exact same name.

Before diving into the Shark Tank update, it is important to clarify what this article covers.

First, there is Hopscotch Health, a telehealth therapy platform designed for children and teens. Second, there is a Hopscotch kids and baby clothing brand based in India that has raised over $71 million in funding.

Finally, there is the Hopscotch Coding App, which is the educational software company that appeared on Shark Tank. This article focuses entirely on the American coding app created by Samantha John and Jocelyn Leavitt.

What Is the Hopscotch App?

Hopscotch is an educational application that teaches children how to code through a highly visual, interactive, and fun platform.

Unlike traditional text-based coding, which requires typing out complex, easily broken lines of text, Hopscotch uses a block-based visual programming language.

Children create commands by dragging and dropping colorful blocks onto their screen. These blocks snap together like puzzle pieces to form logic chains. These chains of code allow kids to animate characters, keep track of points, and build fully playable mobile games.

The purpose of this visual approach is to remove the frustration of typing errors. Instead of worrying about a missing comma crashing their game, kids can focus entirely on creativity, logic, and problem-solving.

While the app is primarily designed for children between the ages of 8 and 12, it remains a fantastic starting point for teenagers and even adults who want to learn the absolute basics of computer programming.

Users can choose from dozens of different characters, draw their own custom artwork, and publish their finished games to a fully moderated online community. Once published, other kids from around the country can play, like, and learn from those creations.

Who Founded Hopscotch?

Hopscotch was created by Samantha John and Jocelyn Leavitt, two women with a shared passion for education and technology.

Samantha John discovered her love for programming during her senior year at Columbia University in New York City, where she studied applied mathematics. Before creating Hopscotch, she worked as a software engineer and developer.

In that role, she often found herself as one of the few women in the room. This experience sparked her desire to create a tool that would make coding accessible, fun, and welcoming to everyone, especially young girls.

Jocelyn Leavitt, the co-founder, brought a deep background in education to the table. With a degree from Dartmouth College and an MBA from Columbia Business School, Leavitt previously worked as a history teacher. She was heavily inspired by project-based learning and the simple idea that children learn best when they are actively building things themselves.

Together, they launched the Hopscotch app in 2013, making it the very first programming language designed specifically for a touchscreen device.

Today, the team has expanded. As of 2026, the company is completely independent and operates without reliance on venture capital.

Key leaders on the modern team include Rodrigo Tello, an interface designer who treats computing as an art medium, and Yuanyuan Zhao, a former New York City teacher who manages the community events that keep kids engaged.

Hopscotch Shark Tank Pitch: Season 12

Samantha John appeared on Season 12, Episode 15 of Shark Tank, seeking a $400,000 investment in exchange for a 4% equity stake in Hopscotch. This ask gave the software company an implied valuation of $10 million.

During her pitch, John asked the Sharks to test out video games that real children had built using the Hopscotch app.

She then walked the wealthy investors through the process of programming a simple game right there on the stage, highlighting just how easy and intuitive the platform was to use.

At the time of filming in 2021, the company boasted roughly 200,000 active monthly users. However, John explained to the panel that she wanted to transition the business model.

The app was currently free to download, and the company made money through a monthly subscription plan.

John wanted to secure funding to experiment with making the app entirely free to use, while charging a one-time upfront fee for the initial download.

This proposed shift in the business model made several Sharks very nervous:

• Daymond John was unconvinced by the strategy to change how the company made money and dropped out.
• Lori Greiner felt she lacked the specific tech industry expertise needed to add value to the company and declined to invest.
• Kevin O’Leary had past experiences in the educational software industry and chose not to get involved.
• Barbara Corcoran admitted she simply did not fully understand the proposed business model and bowed out.

Mark Cuban, however, saw immense potential. He was already deeply familiar with Hopscotch because his own children used and loved the app at home.

Cuban offered $400,000 for a 16% stake, stating he could use his connections with youth coding camps to help the business scale quickly.

After some intense back-and-forth negotiation, John and Cuban agreed to a final deal: $550,000 for an 11% equity stake.

Did Hopscotch Actually Get a Deal with Mark Cuban?

If you watch the original episode, it ends with a celebratory handshake and an agreement. However, the reality of business is often much more complicated. The deal with Mark Cuban never closed.

After the cameras stop rolling on Shark Tank, every company enters a mandatory “due diligence” period. During this time, lawyers and accountants review the business closely before any real money changes hands.

It is incredibly common for deals to fall through during this phase due to disagreements over contract terms, sudden changes in the market, or the founders simply deciding they no longer need the capital.

Today, Hopscotch is not listed anywhere in Mark Cuban’s official portfolio of active Shark Tank investments.

Furthermore, Samantha John ultimately decided not to switch to the risky pay-per-download model she pitched on the show. Instead, Hopscotch remained a subscription-based platform and continued to grow independently.

Despite the deal falling through, the exposure from national television was a massive win. In the months following the episode’s premiere, Hopscotch experienced a staggering 500% increase in app downloads on the Apple App Store.

What Happened to Hopscotch After Shark Tank?

Hopscotch used the momentum from its Shark Tank appearance to solidify its position as a leading educational tool in the United States.

The app has now been downloaded over 24 million times, and young users have published more than 36 million original games to the platform.

In the years following the show, the company focused heavily on community building and specialized learning. They successfully launched live Game Development Workshops, where kids could take online coding classes with expert instructors.

These classes, priced at $399, guided students through the process of designing and programming their own complex video games from scratch while getting personalized help from tutors.

By 2026, Hopscotch proudly established itself as a fully independent software company. Because it is no longer reliant on outside venture capital, the leadership team has the freedom to focus entirely on the educational value of the product, rather than answering to corporate investors.

The team also regularly pushes new updates. In 2025, they released a highly anticipated update that added a wave of new programmable characters to the app, including the “Baby Alien,” “Bunny Girl,” “Poncho,” and “Airship”.

The app has also earned widespread critical acclaim, winning the Parents Magazine award for Best Apps for Families, a Parent’s Choice Gold Medal, and being named an Innovation By Design Finalist by FastCompany.

Hopscotch Net Worth & Revenue

Because Hopscotch is a privately held, independent company, it is not required to publicly disclose its exact tax filings or exact net worth. However, industry data and financial estimates paint a very clear picture of a healthy, thriving business.

Following the Shark Tank bump, the company reported closing out 2021 with roughly $3 million in annual revenue.

By late 2023, and stabilizing through 2024 and 2026, Hopscotch Technologies achieved an estimated $5 million in annual revenue.

The company has proven that it did not need a Shark’s money to build a highly profitable and sustainable enterprise.

They achieved this growth through smart marketing, a strong subscription base, and a reputation for providing immense value to both parents and educators.

2026 Pricing: How Much Does Hopscotch Cost?

While Samantha John originally pitched the idea of making the app a paid download, Hopscotch ultimately stuck with a “freemium” subscription model.

The app is entirely free to download on Apple devices (such as the iPad and Mac), allowing kids to try the basic features at absolutely no cost.

For families who want to unlock the full power of the platform, Hopscotch offers several updated premium tiers in 2026:

For educators and schools, Hopscotch also generously provides free lesson plans and classroom accounts to help teachers integrate computer science into their daily curriculum.

Real User Reviews: The Good and the Bad

Looking at the Apple App Store in 2026, Hopscotch maintains a very strong reputation, though it is not without its critics.

The Good: Parents and teachers heavily praise the app for its open-ended creativity. One fourth-grade teacher noted, “Our students have been introduced to coding through it and I am impressed with the creativity they have shown and the skills they are building”.

Another major point of praise is that Hopscotch doesn’t just force kids to solve boring logic puzzles; it gives them a blank canvas to create literal video games that they actually want to play.

The Bad: The most common complaint from young users revolves around the paywall. On the free version of the app, users are only allowed to publish 10 projects to the community.

Once a child hits that limit, they cannot share any more games unless their parents pay for the premium subscription.

Some teenagers on community forums like Reddit have also complained that the app occasionally suffers from slow loading times and glitches when trying to access the newest games tab.

To the company’s credit, the developers actively respond to these concerns, reminding users that the subscription fees are what allow them to keep the lights on, pay their team, and continue offering a safe, ad-free environment for kids.

Hopscotch vs. Scratch vs. Roblox Studio in 2026

The market for children’s coding applications is highly competitive in 2026. Parents often wonder which platform is the absolute best starting point for their child. Here is how Hopscotch compares to its two biggest rivals: Scratch and Roblox Studio.

Hopscotch (The iPad Champion)

Hopscotch is uniquely designed for touchscreens. If your child loves using an iPad or iPhone, Hopscotch is the absolute best choice on the market.

The drag-and-drop interface is highly polished, and the transition from just playing a game to actively making a game feels incredibly natural.

Scratch (The Desktop Standard)

Created by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Scratch remains the undisputed king of free, web-based coding.

Like Hopscotch, it uses a block-based visual coding style. It is completely free to use, but it requires a laptop, Chromebook, or desktop computer to get the best experience, as it is not optimized for mobile touchscreens.

Roblox Studio (The Advanced Step)

While millions of kids love playing Roblox, creating games for it requires downloading a desktop program called Roblox Studio. Unlike Hopscotch and Scratch, Roblox Studio requires typing real, text-based code using a programming language called Lua.

This platform is legitimately challenging and is best suited for older kids and teenagers who have already mastered the foundational logic taught by beginner apps.

Coding in an AI World

In 2026, artificial intelligence tools can write complex computer code in a matter of seconds. Because of this, some parents wonder if teaching kids to code is still necessary.

Educational experts agree that learning to code is no longer just about memorizing specific computer languages; it is about learning “computational thinking”. Apps like Hopscotch teach kids logic, sequencing, and advanced problem-solving skills.

Even if AI handles the heavy lifting of typing code in the future, humans still need to understand the logic required to direct those AI tools effectively. Hopscotch builds the foundational brain power required to thrive in a tech-driven future.

Conclusion: Is Hopscotch Worth It?

Hopscotch is very much alive, independent, and thriving in 2026. With over 24 million downloads, a fiercely loyal user base, and strong annual revenues hovering around $5 million, the company has cemented its legacy in the American educational technology space.

Samantha John and Jocelyn Leavitt successfully took a simple idea, making computer programming accessible on an iPad, and built it into a highly respected software company.

They survived the pressure of the Shark Tank, walked away from a television deal that no longer suited their long-term vision, and retained full independent control over their business.

For parents looking to limit mindless screen time and replace it with a genuine skill-building activity, Hopscotch remains one of the highest-rated, most engaging, and most trusted applications available today.