Product Update
Is Lid Lifters Still in Business? (2026 Update)
Is Lid Lifters from Dragons’ Den still around in 2026? The deal it made, the dragons who invested, and where to buy Lid Lifters today.
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Lid Lifters pitched a simple, labour-saving device for lifting wheelie bin lids on Dragons' Den, the kind of small practical invention that either quietly becomes a permanent fixture in a supplier's catalogue or fades away once the initial interest wears off. The honest answer here is that the current picture is genuinely unclear, and it is worth saying so rather than guessing.
The Short Answer
We cannot confirm with confidence that Lid Lifters is still actively trading as its own business today. The product itself, or something very similar to it, still turns up occasionally through third-party listings on sites like Amazon and eBay, and it has clearly been stocked by at least one distributor in the years since the pitch. What we could not find was a live official website or current company activity that would let us say definitively that the original business behind the Den pitch is still operating.
Given that, the fairest thing we can say is that the product concept has outlived the original TV moment in some form, even if the specific company that pitched it may not be actively trading in the way it once was.
The Pitch
Lid Lifters appeared in series 7, episode 3, pitching a foot-operated device designed to make opening a heavy wheelie bin lid easier, without bending down or getting your hands dirty, in the Home & Lifestyle category. Founders Lawrence Webb and Frank Drewett had actually held a patent on the design since 1997, over a decade before their Den appearance, and had already sold a modest number of units by the time they pitched.
They asked for £50,000 in exchange for 50 percent of the business, giving up a large chunk of equity for a relatively small sum, which suggests they valued getting the product properly to market more than holding onto ownership.
Household products built around a genuinely universal chore, in this case something almost every household with wheelie bin collection deals with weekly, tend to have an easy pitch on paper even if the Dragons are sometimes sceptical of how big a market really exists for something this simple. The long gap between the original 1997 patent and the 2009 Den pitch also suggests this was not a rushed idea but one the founders had lived with, and tried to bring to market, for well over a decade.
The Deal
Peter Jones ultimately backed the pitch, investing in return for a stake in the patent, after some initial scepticism in the Den about whether a product this simple could really support a scalable business. That scepticism is a common thread in pitches for straightforward, low-tech household inventions. The idea can be sound and still struggle to convince investors used to hearing about apps and subscription models.
Following the deal, the product was made available through a supplier, priced at around £15, and was later supplied in bulk to retailers through a distributor handling stock in boxes of two dozen units at a time.
What Happened After
The clearest evidence of ongoing activity we found dates to several years after the original episode, describing the product being supplied through a distributor in display packs for retail. Beyond that window, the trail thins out considerably, and the original dedicated website referenced around the time of the pitch does not appear to be reliably active today.
That pattern, real early traction followed by a long quiet stretch with no fresh news, is common for small physical product businesses that never scale past a niche supplier relationship. It does not necessarily mean the company folded, but it does mean we cannot verify current, active trading with any confidence.
Simple hardware products like this one often end up living a quiet second life through third-party sellers long after the original founders have moved on, with old stock or licensed manufacturing continuing to trickle onto marketplaces years after the inventor stopped actively running the business day to day. That may well be what is happening here, though it is a pattern-based guess rather than something we can confirm from the public record.
Where Things Stand Now
Lid Lifters pitched in series 7 for £50,000 at 50 percent and secured backing from Peter Jones for the patented wheelie bin lid device. The product was distributed through at least one supplier for several years afterward.
As for whether it is still in business today, the responsible answer is that we do not have enough current evidence to say for certain either way. If you are looking to buy one, check current listings on marketplaces like Amazon and eBay directly, since that is where any remaining stock appears to surface, rather than assuming an official Lid Lifters storefront is still operating.
Where to buy Lid Lifters
Still selling as of 10 April 2026. Check today's price and availability.
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See the full Lid Lifters deal breakdown and term sheet →
