Daisy Cakes

Daisy Cakes is a line of from-scratch layer cakes baked from old family recipes and shipped straight to your door. Founder Kim Nelson grew up in South Carolina baking with her grandmother and aunt, the women whose recipes became the brand. She left a career in pharmaceutical sales to bake full time, working out of Pawleys Island and naming the company after a family nickname before bringing her cakes to a national audience.

Nelson pitched in Season 2 asking for fifty thousand dollars in exchange for a quarter of the business. Barbara Corcoran first called the operation too small to interest her, then changed course after tasting the cake. She structured the investment so Nelson would repay a dollar for every cake sold, a royalty-style arrangement that protected Corcoran while giving Nelson the cash she needed to scale.

What made the segment land was the cake itself. Corcoran openly admitted the dessert won her over, and that genuine reaction gave the brand credibility no slogan could buy. The personal backstory, real family recipes baked by hand rather than a factory product, gave Daisy Cakes a warmth that resonated with viewers and kept Corcoran talking about it for years afterward.

The episode drove a surge of orders that Nelson has said nearly overwhelmed her small kitchen operation. She built out capacity, hired staff, and turned the one-time television bump into steady mail-order demand. The cakes reached customers in all fifty states, and Daisy Cakes became one of the deals Corcoran has repeatedly named among her favorites from the show.

Daisy Cakes is still operating in 2026. When Nelson returned for a Shark Tank update segment, she reported the brand had reached lifetime sales of several million dollars. The catalog has grown well beyond the original flavors to include seasonal cakes, gluten-free and vegan options, and single-serve jarred desserts, and Nelson has also published cookbooks tied to the brand.