Product Update

Is i Teddy Still in Business? (2026 Update)

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

Dragons' Den IndexUpdated 10 July 20266 min read

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i-Teddy landed one of the more memorable deals in early Dragons' Den history: a classic teddy bear stuffed with a screen and speakers, built by inventor Imran Hakim. If you are asking whether you can still buy one in 2026, the honest answer is that the evidence is thin, and this one deserves a hedge rather than a confident yes or no.

The Short Answer

We could not find a live storefront, an active Amazon listing, or recent retail coverage confirming that i-Teddy is currently being manufactured and sold as a product today. That does not prove the brand is dead, but a device built around 2007-era screen and audio technology is a hard thing to keep selling nearly two decades later without a visible retail presence.

What is clear is that Imran Hakim, the inventor behind i-Teddy, is still very much in business, just not primarily in toys anymore. His attention has shifted almost entirely to the Hakim Group, the UK's largest family-owned group of independent opticians and audiologists, which he has grown substantially since the i-Teddy pitch.

The Pitch

Imran Hakim brought i-Teddy to the Den in Series 4, Episode 2. The idea was simple to explain and hard to forget: take a classic-looking teddy bear and build in media technology, so a child's toy doubles as a way to play audio, video, or recorded messages from a parent.

Hakim asked for £140,000 in exchange for 40 percent of the company. It was a confident ask for a first-generation consumer electronics toy, the kind of category where manufacturing costs, component sourcing, and retail listings can eat an investment fast if the founder does not have the right partners.

The Deal

Peter Jones and Theo Paphitis joined forces and backed the full £140,000 for the 40 percent stake on offer. It is another example of two Dragons combining forces on a full-price ask, which tends to happen when both see a product with genuine mass-market retail potential rather than a niche curiosity.

Jones brought consumer electronics and retail distribution experience, while Paphitis brought decades of running high street retail chains. On paper, that was a strong combination for a toy that needed both engineering credibility and shelf space.

What Happened After the Cameras Stopped

In the years immediately after the pitch, i-Teddy did find real commercial success. The toy secured a licensing deal that took it into dozens of countries, and it became one of the better-known Dragons' Den toy stories of that era, a rare case where a novelty gadget genuinely scaled.

But toy technology moves fast, and a bear built around a built-in screen and speaker system from the late 2000s faces the same problem every gadget-toy eventually faces: newer, cheaper alternatives, and a founder whose energy has moved elsewhere. Hakim's public profile today centres almost entirely on the Hakim Group and his work expanding independent opticians, including into the United States. His personal website lists i-Teddy as a career milestone rather than an active, ongoing product line.

Why This One Is Genuinely Unclear

We want to be straight about the limits of what we could verify here. There is no dedicated i-Teddy retail site turning up in current searches, and no Amazon listing we could confirm as live. That points toward the product being discontinued or at minimum dormant as an actively marketed line.

At the same time, licensed toy products sometimes continue selling quietly through international distributors or licensees long after the original inventor has moved on, without much fresh press coverage to show for it. Rather than state a fact we cannot back up either way, our honest read is that i-Teddy the product looks dormant or discontinued as a going concern, while Imran Hakim himself, the person behind the deal, remains a highly active and successful entrepreneur through the Hakim Group.

Where Things Stand Now

i-Teddy pitched in Series 4 for £140,000 at 40 percent, and Peter Jones and Theo Paphitis backed the ask jointly. The toy went on to real early success with international licensing deals.

As things stand today, we could not confirm an active storefront or current sales for the i-Teddy product itself, so treat its present-day status as unverified rather than a firm yes. Imran Hakim, meanwhile, has built a much larger business in opticians and audiology through the Hakim Group, which is the more accurate place to look if you are wondering what became of the man behind the bear.

Where to buy i Teddy

Still selling as of 10 July 2026. Check today's price and availability.

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See the full i Teddy deal breakdown and term sheet →