Product Update
Is Thrift+ Still in Business? (2026 Update)
Is Thrift+ from Dragons’ Den still around in 2026? The deal it made, the dragons who invested, and where to buy Thrift+ today.
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Thrift+, the pre-loved fashion resale marketplace that pitched in Series 17, Episode 14 of Dragons' Den, is still trading today, but not in the simple, unbroken way most "still in business" verdicts play out. The platform survived, but the original company behind it did not make it there in one piece.
The Short Answer
Thrift+ is still operating. Its website, thrift.plus, is live and taking donations and sales of second-hand clothing. But the company that pitched on Dragons' Den went through a pre-pack administration process, and its trade and assets were bought out by another circular economy business rather than continuing under the original ownership untouched.
So the brand lives on, and you can still use the service, but the company that stood in front of the Dragons is not the same legal entity running it today.
The Pitch
Founder Joe Metcalfe brought Thrift+ into the Den in Series 17, Episode 14, pitching a managed marketplace built to reduce the roughly 70 percent of second-hand clothing that goes to waste rather than getting resold. The ask was £150,000 for 10 percent of the business.
It is a compelling problem to solve and a mission-led pitch that fits the sustainability wave that ran through several Series 17 episodes. The dragons responded well enough to it that Thrift+ walked away with a deal.
The Thrift+ model was built around convenience: rather than asking customers to photograph, list and post individual items themselves, the company sent out bags customers could fill with unwanted clothes, which Thrift+ then sorted, photographed and resold, splitting the proceeds. That managed-marketplace approach removed friction for sellers but added significant operational cost and complexity for the company itself, a trade-off that shaped much of what came later.
The Years Between the Pitch and Now
Thrift+ grew substantially after its television appearance. The company later raised close to £2 million through Seedrs crowdfunding and built a team that reportedly reached more than 65 people, a scale that goes well beyond most Dragons' Den alumni.
But scale cuts both ways. Reporting from 2025 shows the company ran into serious trouble when a signed £2 million funding term sheet fell through and an investor withdrew, leaving Thrift+ without the capital it needed to keep operating as it was. That funding gap is what pushed the company toward administration.
This is a common pattern for managed marketplaces with high operating costs: they can grow revenue quickly while still losing money on every transaction, because the labour of sorting, photographing and listing thousands of individual second-hand items does not scale as cheaply as a pure software platform would. When external funding dries up, that kind of business has very little room to manoeuvre.
The Rescue Deal
Rather than shutting down entirely, Thrift+'s trade and assets were acquired through a pre-pack administration deal by a Staffordshire-based circular economy company that already worked in textiles and materials recycling. A pre-pack administration is a common UK insolvency route where a buyer is lined up before the administration is formally announced, so the trading business can keep operating with minimal disruption to customers.
That is exactly what appears to have happened here. The website stayed live, the core service, sending in unwanted clothes to be resold or recycled, kept running, and customers reviewing the service as recently as mid-2026 describe ongoing, if uneven, service rather than a dead company.
This is worth knowing if you are a customer with clothes sitting with Thrift+ from before the administration, or a creditor owed money by the original company. A pre-pack sale typically means the new owner takes on the trading business and its customer-facing operations, but not necessarily every liability of the old company, which is precisely why pre-pack administrations are often controversial: they can look, from the outside, like the business carried on as normal, while investors, staff owed money and other creditors of the old company are left considerably worse off.
Where Things Stand Now
Thrift+ pitched in Series 17, Episode 14, asked for £150,000 for 10 percent, and secured a deal on air. The original company later hit a serious funding crunch and went through a pre-pack administration in 2025, with its trade bought out by another circular economy business.
So if the question is simply "can I still use Thrift+ today", the answer is yes. If the question is whether the exact company that pitched on the show is still running it, the honest answer is no, it changed hands through an insolvency process. Both things are true, and anyone searching for the tidy version of this story should know it is a rescue, not an unbroken success.
Where to buy Thrift+
Still selling as of 3 June 2026. Check today's price and availability.
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See the full Thrift+ deal breakdown and term sheet →
