Shark Tank confirmed its Season 18 lineup this week, and the headline isn’t just the celebrity guest sharks — it’s two familiar faces earning permanent seats in the tank. Jewelry mogul Kendra Scott, who first appeared on the show in Season 12, and Harbinger Sports Partners’ Rashaun Williams, who debuted in Season 16, have both been promoted from recurring guests to full-time cast members. They’ll join the show’s veteran core: Barbara Corcoran, Robert Herjavec, Lori Greiner, Daymond John, Daniel Lubetzky, and Kevin O’Leary.
The move fills a seat that’s been open since Mark Cuban’s departure at the end of Season 16 in 2025, and it comes alongside a splashy set of guest sharks for the new season: Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast) and his Beast Industries CEO Jeffrey Housenbold, Mindy Kaling, J.J. Watt, Erin Foster and Sara Foster of Favorite Daughter, and “Diary of a CEO” host Steven Bartlett. Season 18 premieres this fall, airing Wednesdays on ABC with next-day streaming on Hulu.
For anyone who’s followed the show closely, Scott and Williams earning permanent chairs isn’t a surprise so much as a formalization of what’s already been happening. Both have been active, frequent investors for multiple seasons — and their deal histories say a lot about what kind of sharks viewers should expect going forward.
Kendra Scott’s Investing Style
Scott built her own company from $500 and a spare bedroom in 2002 into a billion-dollar jewelry brand, famously waiting more than a decade before accepting any outside investment. That patience shows up in how she invests on the show: she gravitates toward founders with personal, values-driven stories rather than pure spreadsheet plays. Her Season 17 deal with Sleepy Baby is a good example — she offered $70,000 for 50% equity after connecting with the founders as a fellow parent, stepping in only after four other sharks had already passed. She’s made a similar move before, backing hot-sauce brand Sienna Sauce and Austin-based names like Helm Boots, often pairing her capital with hands-on mentorship rather than staying hands-off.
Rashaun Williams’ Investing Style
Williams tends to bring a different lens — grounded in his venture capital background, he often points to a founder’s prior traction or an investor’s track record with similar companies as his reason for getting in or bowing out. He’s frequently part of multi-shark deals rather than going solo; earlier this year, he joined Daniel Lubetzky, Kevin O’Leary, and Kendra Scott in an $800,000 investment in sports-performance brand 9 STRAP, and he was part of the five-shark bidding war that ultimately landed sock brand Doublesoul a $500,000 deal valuing the company at $12.5 million.
What to Watch For in Season 18
With both investors now locked in full-time, expect more of the pattern already visible in recent seasons: multi-shark deals with heavy involvement from Scott, Williams, Lubetzky, and O’Leary, and a growing tilt toward founder-story-driven pitches alongside the traditional numbers-first pitches that built the show’s early reputation. The addition of MrBeast — whose business empire, Beast Industries, is itself a case study in modern consumer-brand building — could bring a notably different investing philosophy into the mix as well.
Season 18 premieres this fall on ABC.
