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In March 2013, we wrote about Bon Affair, a start-up in San Diego that makes an all-natural bottled wine spritzer. Its founder, Jayla Siciliano, described it as a lower-alcohol, lower-calorie alternative to wine, with electrolytes added to help, perhaps, with hangover symptoms.

Bon Affair had received $700,000 in financing from friends, family and a few private investors but had burned through much of it after a debacle with a bottler (the caps leaked) that cost the company more than $100,000 worth of inventory. Ms. Siciliano found a new bottler and was hoping to enter several Whole Foods stores in Southern California. The spritzer was also sold online, through Bon Affair’s website.

Last year, an adviser to Ms. Siciliano suggested that she apply to appear on the ABC television show “Shark Tank,” where entrepreneurs pitch their start-ups to a group of well-known investors. Ms. Siciliano decided to try, and she was chosen for the show.

At the time, Bon Affair was not breaking even on its sales and — because of the bottling problem — there wasn’t enough money left for marketing or expansion. To continue, Ms. Siciliano needed cash. “Pitching on Shark Tank was one of my last-ditch efforts to raise more money,” she said.

In September, Ms. Siciliano drove up to Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City, Calif., to tape the segment. She had to promise not to discuss what happened — or to reveal whether she got financing — until the show aired, which finally happened Friday evening when about 50 of Ms. Siciliano’s friends, family members and investors gathered at Masuo’s, a sushi bar north of San Diego, to watch the episode.

Four of the five sharks challenged Ms. Siciliano with serious questions. Robert Herjavec expressed concern that a new investment would dilute the shares of Ms. Siciliano’s existing investors and said he was out. Barbara Corcoran said that to succeed Ms. Siciliano would have to introduce consumers not only to the brand but to the category, spritzers. “I think it’s going to be a heck of a long haul,” Ms. Corcoran said.

Daymond John said it would take a “massive” amount of money for Ms. Siciliano to establish the company. “You can’t touch this market without even $5 million to get started,” he said. “I know this journey, and it’s very, very hard. I’ve already lost my shirt on one deal like this. I’m out.”

Kevin O’Leary advised Ms. Siciliano to try to get Bon Affair into Costco — “the number one buyer of wine on earth” — but said he wouldn’t back her. “You’ve taken down a lot of investor dollars to try and build a whole new category in the wine business,” he said. “And I think you have a tough road ahead.”

As one investor after another said no, the back room of Masuo’s got very quiet. Finally it was Mark Cuban’s turn, and he proceeded to offer exactly what Ms. Siciliano had requested: $150,000 for 35 percent of the company. The crowd at Masuo erupted in cheers, toasting with fluted glasses of red and white Bon Affair. Although Mr. Cuban admitted to not knowing much about the wine business, he said, “If it works, it’s worth a lot of money. If it doesn’t, I’m out time and $150,000.” Then he added, “You know what? Worst case, my wife gives these away at Christmas.”

Ms. Siciliano was thrilled. “I actually didn’t expect to get a deal at all,” she said. “I knew that the issues I had were major going in there. I knew it was going to be a huge sore spot that I had raised a lot of money, and we didn’t have a lot of sales.”

But it seems Mr. Cuban has faith in Bon Affair’s potential to be more than a Cuban family Christmas gift. Ms. Siciliano said Mr. Cuban has been an “amazing” mentor and adviser since the deal was finalized. He has “a team of eight people I work with, that are 100 percent dedicated to his ‘Shark Tank’ companies,” she said. “They do everything from business development and finance to production and the website.”

While Ms. Siciliano said it had been frustrating not to be able to talk publicly about the involvement of Mr. Cuban, who owns the Dallas Mavericks basketball team, until the episode aired. She said she is hoping to leverage that information now, using the partnership to make the connections necessary to get Bon Affair into more stores. “Now we are able to talk to distributors and large retailers in Texas,” she said, “which we wouldn’t have been able to do before.”

For the moment, Ms. Siciliano says, Bon Affair is in a good shape. In the 24 hours after the show aired, the company posted $40,000 in sales, almost doubling its total for the previous six months. The product is now being sold in 10 Whole Foods stores, from L.A. to San Diego, and in 12 Albertson’s stores in the greater San Diego area. Ms. Siciliano is about to sign with a distributor in Texas and one in Southern California, and she is hoping that revenue will climb fast enough that her company will not have to seek any more financing, at least not in the near future.

You can follow Eilene Zimmerman on Twitter.