Product Update

What Happened to Noveltea After Dragons’ Den?

Noveltea left the Den without a deal. Here is what happened next: how the pitch went, why the dragons passed, and where Noveltea is today.

Dragons' Den IndexUpdated 2 July 20266 min read

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Noveltea's story does not stop at its Dragons' Den appearance, and it is not a straight line either. Founders Lukas Passia and Vincent Efferoth pitched their alcohol-infused tea in series 16, walked away from a joint offer, kept growing the brand internationally, then lost the company to liquidation during the pandemic, and it has since come back under new ownership.

The Short Answer

Noveltea is trading again in 2026, but not under its original founders or the original corporate entity. The brand went into liquidation in 2022 after Covid-19 hit sales hard, and was subsequently bought out of that liquidation, IP, website, and social accounts included, by Feature Spirit, whose founder Dave Carson has been rebuilding the brand since.

So the honest answer has two parts: the company Passia and Efferoth built did fail commercially, but the Noveltea brand itself survived that failure and is back on the market under different ownership.

The Pitch

Noveltea pitched in series 16, episode 7, asking for £80,000 for 30 percent of the business, an alcohol-flavoured tea blend aimed at the growing market for premium, novelty spirits and mixed drinks. The Dragons' taste test reportedly went well, but questions about branding, specifically whether the name Noveltea risked being read literally as a novelty rather than a serious drinks brand, coloured the discussion.

Deborah Meaden and Jenny Campbell were both openly sceptical about the branding, with Campbell calling it awful outright, even as the product itself scored well.

An Offer, Then a Counter-Offer That Killed It

Despite the branding concerns, Jenny Campbell, Tej Lalvani, and Touker Suleyman each offered to split the £80,000 investment for 10 percent apiece. Rather than accept, Passia and Efferoth came back with a counter-offer, and the negotiation collapsed, costing them all three Dragons in one move.

It is a familiar pattern in the Den: founders holding out for better terms sometimes get a better deal, and sometimes lose everyone at the table. This was the second outcome.

Growth, Then Liquidation

After the show, Noveltea continued to build its business internationally and reportedly secured over a million pounds in additional funding at one stage, growing the brand across European markets. But the Covid-19 pandemic hit the hospitality and events channels the drink depended on hard, and the original company was unable to recover.

The business ceased trading, staff were made redundant, and an accelerated sale process failed to find a viable buyer, leading the company into creditors' voluntary liquidation in 2022.

That collapse is a reminder that a strong pitch, real funding, and genuine international growth do not automatically protect a drinks brand from a shock big enough to shut down its main sales channels overnight. Bars, festivals, and events venues were exactly the settings Noveltea relied on, and all three disappeared at once during lockdowns.

A New Owner, A Second Chance

Feature Spirit, led by founder Dave Carson, subsequently acquired the Noveltea brand and its intellectual property, including the website and social media accounts, out of that liquidation. The new owners have been working to refresh the brand's look and continue producing the drink, now manufactured in Germany, alongside developing new products under the same name.

This kind of brand-out-of-liquidation revival is not unusual in drinks and consumer goods; the underlying name recognition and customer familiarity often survive even when the original company behind it does not.

It is worth being precise about which show this pitch belongs to as well. Passia and Efferoth are German entrepreneurs who took Noveltea to the German version of the format too, and reporting on the brand's later liquidation and revival draws on coverage of that wider European journey, not solely the UK broadcast, since the underlying company and product were the same across both.

The Bottom Line

Noveltea asked for £80,000 for 30 percent, had a three-Dragon offer on the table, killed it with a counter-offer, grew internationally afterwards, and then went into liquidation in 2022 when the pandemic hit its sales channels.

The brand is trading again today under Feature Spirit's ownership, which means Noveltea the name survived even though the company that pitched it in the Den did not. If you were checking whether the alcohol-tea brand is still around, it is, just not run by the founders who first brought it into that room, and its path there was considerably rockier than a simple yes or no answer would suggest.

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See the full Noveltea deal breakdown and term sheet →