Product Update
Is Red Button Design Still in Business? (2026 Update)
Is Red Button Design from Dragons’ Den still around in 2026? The deal it made, the dragons who invested, and where to buy Red Button Design today.
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Red Button Design pitched a water sanitation and transport device on Dragons' Den, the kind of pitch that tugs at a different part of the room than the usual gadgets and drinks brands. The short answer to whether the company is still trading is no. Red Button Design was dissolved in 2014.
The Short Answer
Red Button Design is no longer in business. The company was dissolved in 2014, several years after its Den appearance, and the founders' path after the show did not run through the Dragons at all. They turned down the on-air investment and took a university grant instead.
This is one of the clearer not still trading verdicts among Den pitches. There is no live company, no current product listing under the Red Button Design name, and a formal dissolution on the record.
The Pitch
Red Button Design appeared in series 5, episode 9, pitching a device for water transport, sanitation and storage aimed at people in developing countries who lack reliable access to clean water. It is a mission-driven product rather than a typical consumer gadget, which tends to change how a pitch plays out in the Den.
The founders, reportedly University of Glasgow students, asked for £50,000 in exchange for 10 percent of the business. That is a relatively modest ask by Den standards, and it landed a deal.
Pitches with a genuine social or humanitarian angle can be a harder sell in the Den than a pure consumer product, since Dragons are ultimately looking at commercial return rather than impact alone. A team that can show both a working prototype and a credible route to revenue, even for a product aimed at underserved markets abroad, tends to do better than one relying purely on the strength of the cause.
The Deal That Was Offered, and Why It Never Happened
According to reporting at the time, the founders secured an offer in the Den but chose not to proceed with it once filming wrapped. Instead, they accepted a £45,000 grant from Oxford University to keep developing the product, which later became known as the Midomo water purifier, outside of any equity arrangement with a Dragon.
That is a meaningful decision. Grant funding does not dilute a founder's ownership the way investment does, and for a social-impact product built around water access in developing countries, a university research grant can be a better fit than a commercial investor looking for a straightforward return.
What Happened After
The product continued development under the Midomo name for a period after the show, with coverage describing it as a reverse osmosis sanitation system intended to make clean water more accessible. That is a genuinely difficult engineering and distribution problem to solve commercially, and plenty of well-intentioned products in this space struggle to reach a sustainable business model even when the underlying technology works.
Red Button Design itself was formally dissolved in 2014. There is no indication the Midomo product or the original company continued trading as a going concern past that point.
Water purification and sanitation products aimed at developing markets often live a second life through academic research programmes or non-profit partnerships rather than conventional retail, and it is plausible some of the underlying research or design work continued in another form even after the original company closed. We have not found evidence of that, though, and we are not going to speculate further than the record supports.
Where Things Stand Now
Red Button Design pitched in series 5 for £50,000 at 10 percent, secured an offer, then declined it in favour of a university grant to keep developing the Midomo water purifier independently. The company was dissolved in 2014.
So if you came here wondering whether you can still find or buy anything under the Red Button Design name today, you cannot. The company has been gone for over a decade, even though the underlying idea, clean water access for people who need it most, was a genuinely worthwhile one to pitch.
It is worth remembering the pitch itself was still a success story on its own terms, even without a lasting company. A university team walked into the Den, secured a genuine offer of investment, and then went on to secure meaningful grant funding to keep developing the technology. That sequence of events, on-air validation followed by an independent path to funding, is a pattern that shows up more than once in this batch, and it is a reminder that a Den offer can be useful leverage even for founders who never take the Dragons' money.
Where to buy Red Button Design
Still selling as of 7 April 2026. Check today's price and availability.
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See the full Red Button Design deal breakdown and term sheet →
