Ring founder Jamie Siminoff is coming back to “Shark Tank” as a guest shark this season. (Ring Photo)

“Shark Tank” investors didn’t bite five years ago when Ring founder Jamie Siminoff pitched his video doorbell on the popular show. But they’ve come knocking now, inviting Siminoff back as a “guest shark” seven months after Amazon acquired Ring for $1 billion.

Siminoff will appear in the season premiere of the ABC series on Oct. 7. Siminoff will also be a guest speaker at next week’s GeekWire Summit, where he’ll take part in a fireside chat on Tuesday at 11:30 a.m.

“Shark Tank’s” pass on Ring — known at the time as DoorBot — was called “probably the biggest miss” in the history of the show, where investors hear pitches and decide whether to fund entrepreneurs and small companies. Siminoff was seeking to raise $700,000 from the sharks at a $7 million valuation for the company.

Now comfortably pursuing Ring’s mission of reducing crime in neighborhoods as part of Amazon, Siminoff is working on a growing array of home security technologies. And he told GeekWire that being on “Shark Tank” was a catalyst for everything Ring has accomplished.

Siminoff said he was literally an inventor driving from his garage to the TV set to raise money for a hardware company that was well in the red at the time, and it was one of the scariest things he’d done. He left devastated after failing to convince the investors, but getting on the air brought credibility to the company.

Now he’ll be back to open season 10.

“To call it surreal is like the greatest understatement of all time,” Siminoff said, adding that the show truly made his dreams come true.

“Shark Tank” season 10 premieres on ABC, Sunday, Oct. 7, at 10 p.m. ET.

Like what you're reading? Subscribe to GeekWire's free newsletters to catch every headline

Job Listings on GeekWork

Find more jobs on GeekWork. Employers, post a job here.