Product Update

Is Hungry House Still in Business? (2026 Update)

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

Dragons' Den IndexUpdated 6 April 20266 min read

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Hungry House is one of the great what-if stories in Dragons' Den history. The online takeaway ordering service pitched in series 5, walked away from the Dragons' offer, and went on to be worth vastly more than anyone in the Den imagined. The short answer to whether it is still in business today, though, is no. Hungry House as a standalone brand stopped trading in 2018.

The Short Answer

Hungry House does not exist as an active service anymore. It was bought by Just Eat in 2018 in a deal reportedly worth around £200 million, and the brand was folded into Just Eat shortly after. Customers who used to order through hungryhouse.co.uk were redirected to Just Eat, and the separate app and website were retired.

So this is a case where the underlying business was an enormous success, but the specific company that pitched in the Den no longer trades under its own name. Worth flagging directly: the name has genuinely gone, not just gone quiet.

The Pitch

Hungry House pitched in series 5, episode 5, in the Food & Drink category, asking for £100,000 in exchange for 50 percent of the business. That is a very high equity ask for a young online business, and it reflects how differently online takeaway platforms were valued in the earlier years of the show, well before food delivery became one of the biggest tech categories in the country.

The founders got interest from the Den, but the terms on the table were tough. Reports from the time describe an offer around £100,000 for half the company, which would have valued Hungry House at a fraction of what it later turned out to be worth.

Online takeaway ordering was a genuinely new idea to a lot of viewers in 2007. Ordering a curry or a pizza through a website rather than picking up the phone was not yet the default behaviour it later became, which made the pitch feel more speculative to the Dragons than it looks in hindsight now that food delivery apps are part of daily life for millions of people.

What Actually Happened With the Deal

This is where the story gets interesting, and where it is worth being precise rather than just repeating the tidy version. Public reporting on Hungry House indicates the on-screen offer, reportedly from James Caan and Duncan Bannatyne, did not end up going ahead. The founders instead raised roughly £150,000 from other angel investors outside the Den, on terms they judged to be better for the business long term.

That decision looks smart in hindsight. Hungry House grew into a serious player in UK online food ordering, and Delivery Hero bought the company in 2013. A few years after that, Delivery Hero sold Hungry House on to Just Eat in a deal reportedly worth around £200 million, before the brand was finally retired in 2018 as everything moved onto the Just Eat platform.

Why the Company Behind It Is No Longer Trading

It is worth being clear about the difference between a business failing and a business being absorbed into something bigger. Hungry House did not go bust. It scaled, changed hands twice, and was ultimately merged into the country's biggest takeaway platform. From a consumer's point of view, the service simply stopped existing under that name once Just Eat switched everyone over in 2018.

That makes Hungry House one of the rare Den stories where turning down the Dragons' money turned out to be the better call. The founders kept more of the company through its growth years and sold into two separate acquisitions at what by all accounts were strong prices, long after that original episode aired.

It is also a useful reminder for anyone reading a lot of these Den retrospectives that a rejected offer is not automatically a failure story. The headline moment on screen is only ever the starting gun, and Hungry House is one of the clearest examples of a company that ran a very different, and ultimately far more lucrative, race after the cameras stopped rolling.

Where Things Stand Now

Hungry House pitched in series 5 for £100,000 at 50 percent, and the specific Den offer on the table did not go on to become the company's actual funding. The business grew independently, sold to Delivery Hero in 2013, sold again to Just Eat for around £200 million, and stopped trading under its own name in 2018.

So if you are asking whether you can still order from Hungry House today, you cannot. The brand is gone, but the money it eventually generated for its founders makes it one of the more remarkable outcomes to ever come out of a Dragons' Den episode, on-air deal or not.

Where to buy Hungry House

Still selling as of 6 April 2026. Check today's price and availability.

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See the full Hungry House deal breakdown and term sheet →