ChessUp on Shark Tank: Cost, where to buy, founders and more about electronic chess business

Shark Tank season 14 is set to return this week with episode 9, containing more creative and innovative business ideas. In the upcoming episode of the show, one of the ideas that will be presented to the Sharks is ChessUp. The AI-enabled smart chessboard helps beginners learn the sport. It also helps players enrich their experience and connectivity with other chess players.

It is a modern way of playing the well-known game that has been around for so many years. It also includes 12 hours of game time for the user.

ChessUp is co-founded by three individuals, Jeff Wigh, Justin Farrell, and Adam Roush. It is the first product of the gaming startup, Bryght Labs, and has a total of five people working on the upcoming Shark Tank project.

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All about ChessUp ahead of it’s appearance on Shark Tank season 14 episode 9

ChessUp is a new way of playing Chess. It ensures that the players enjoy themselves, work on their skills, and ensure that the sport does not die a slow death.

The advanced smartboard costs $399 and has built-in AI, touch-sensitive pieces, light indicators, and a companion app. Consumers can also purchase spare chess pieces. A 34 pieces set costs only $79 on the website.

The upcoming product features accompanying products that can be purchased on playchessup.com, the product’s official website. It describes the product as:

"ChessUp is a smart chessboard with a built-in chess instructor. Touch a piece and the board lights up all possible moves according to strength."

During the upcoming episode of Shark Tank, co-founders Adam Roush and Jeff Wigh will make their pitch, while Justin Farrell will be absent from the sets. Their company, Bryght Labs, wishes to focus on STEM-based games and plans to introduce more products to the brand.

The board comes with multiple inbuilt functions that help achieve real-time training along with instructions and comes with an instructor that helps identify mistakes and learn new tactics without any human interactions.

The upcoming Shark Tank project comes with smart touch sensors that enhance the learning process. When a piece is touched, the possible moves light up with different colors. Red indicates that moving the piece to that position would be incorrect, while blue indicates the possibility of it not working in the player’s favor. Green gives the player the go-ahead to proceed.

The game comes with three levels of difficulty and various features. Consumers can either gradually level up based on the skills they learn while using the board or simply play like a pro.

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Meet the team

The founders of ChessUp at the Shark Tank set (Image via ABC/@Christopher Willard)

The co-founders of ChessUp came up with the idea while Wigh was playing chess with his daughter and wanted to create something that would help beginners learn the game. In April 2021, they started fundraising campaigns to help them kickstart their dreams and were able to raise $1,703,168 with their Kickstarter campaign and $1,925,194 with the IndieGoGo campaign.

Before appearing on Shark Tank, they started shipping out their final orders from the campaigns. The two founders who will appear on the show are Adam Roush and Jeff Wigh.

Jeff Roush is a graduate of the University of Kansa, where he earned a Bachelor’s degree in Arts, Industrial, and Product design. Before becoming the co-founder and chief design officer at Bryght Labs, he worked for Xilar as a lead intern followed by working for Garmin as a product architect for 10 years.

Jeff Wigh was a student at Purdue University where he earned a bachelor’s degree in computer engineering and science, followed by completing his MBA from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Prior to his role as co-founder and CEO of the gaming startup, Jeff worked for Herzog, Garmin International, and MIT Sloan School of Management.

The two are set to appear in Shark Tank season 14 episode 9 to pitch ChessUp to the Sharks on Friday, December 9, at 8 pm ET on ABC.