Product Update

Is bar Mate Still in Business? (2026 Update)

Is bar Mate from Dragons’ Den still around in 2026? The deal it made, the dragons who invested, and where to buy bar Mate today.

Dragons' Den IndexUpdated 20 April 20266 min read

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bar Mate pitched a hands-free automated bar tap designed to pour a controlled pint without a member of staff holding the glass, aimed squarely at busy pubs trying to cut queue times. It got a mixed reception in the Den and, based on what we could find, never really made it into pubs at scale.

The Short Answer

We could not find any evidence that bar Mate is still trading, or that the product is currently available anywhere. There is no live company website we could locate, no current retailer stocking the unit, and no recent press mentioning the business by name. That does not prove the company folded on a specific date, but the trail effectively goes cold after the original pitch coverage, which is itself telling.

Automated dispensing hardware for pubs has never really taken off as a mainstream category in the UK, even more than a decade after this pitch, most pubs still pour every pint by hand, which suggests the barriers this particular product ran into were not unique to Bar Mate but reflect a wider resistance across the trade to changing something as fundamental as how a pint gets served.

The Pitch

Founders Nick Cross, Richard Haden and Sebastian Stollard brought the idea into Series 9, Episode 7, asking for £50,000 in exchange for 30 percent of the business. The unit itself was priced at around £90 each for pub buyers, and the founders said they had already secured interest from the Wetherspoons chain, a genuinely significant potential customer for a hospitality product like this.

Wetherspoons interest at the pitch stage is a genuinely notable detail, the chain operates hundreds of pubs across the UK, and even a modest rollout across its estate would have represented a serious order for a three-person start-up.

A Mixed Reception in the Den

Not every Dragon was convinced. Hilary Devey declared herself out on the grounds that if bar staff genuinely could not multitask, the fix was better staff training, not a machine, and Duncan Bannatyne followed her out on similar reasoning.

Reporting from the episode says the founders nonetheless left with backing, with Theo Paphitis and Deborah Meaden reportedly stepping in after negotiation, though we could not confirm the exact final equity split with enough certainty to print a specific figure alongside our recorded ask of 30 percent.

The gap between two Dragons declining and two agreeing to back the pitch is also a useful reminder that panel disagreement on Dragons' Den is common, five experienced investors can watch the same demonstration and reach entirely different conclusions about whether the underlying business case holds up.

Why the Product Likely Never Scaled

Hospitality hardware is a brutal category to break into. Pubs are conservative about anything that touches how a pint gets poured, staff training, health and safety, and the sheer logistics of retrofitting bar equipment across thousands of independent and chain venues are all real barriers, and a single celebrity retail interest, even from a chain the size of Wetherspoons, does not guarantee an actual rollout.

The complete absence of any current trace of the product, no website, no retailer, no press beyond the original pitch coverage, is consistent with a product that generated interest but never converted that into a lasting business.

It is also possible the business quietly continued in a smaller, unpublicised form, perhaps supplying a handful of venues directly without ever building a public-facing website, though we have no evidence either way and would rather say plainly that we could not confirm ongoing trading than imply a level of certainty the record does not support.

Where Things Stand Now

Here is the recap. bar Mate pitched a hands-free pint-pouring system in Series 9, asked for £50,000 for 30 percent, and reportedly secured backing from Theo Paphitis and Deborah Meaden after a mixed reception from the panel.

We found no evidence the business is still operating in 2026. Treat this one as most likely closed, an honest reading of an absence of evidence rather than a confirmed dissolution date.

Common Questions

Did bar Mate get a deal on Dragons' Den? Reporting from the episode says Theo Paphitis and Deborah Meaden stepped in with backing after Hilary Devey and Duncan Bannatyne both declared themselves out, though we could not confirm a precise final equity figure to print alongside the recorded ask of £50,000 for 30 percent.

Is bar Mate still available to buy? We could not find any evidence of it. There is no live company website, retailer listing or recent press mentioning the product.

What did bar Mate actually do? An automated bar tap designed to pour a controlled pint hands-free, aimed at busy pubs, with reported early interest from the Wetherspoons chain.

Where to buy bar Mate

Still selling as of 20 April 2026. Check today's price and availability.

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See the full bar Mate deal breakdown and term sheet →