Product Update
What Happened to Redfoot Shoes After Dragons’ Den?
Redfoot Shoes left the Den without a deal. Here is what happened next: how the pitch went, why the dragons passed, and where Redfoot Shoes is today.
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Tim Smith walked into the Den in series 9 with a shoe that folds flat enough to fit in a handbag. The Dragons liked the idea, but nobody wrote a cheque. Years on, the short answer is that Redfoot is still trading, still making shoes, and still doing it from the same corner of Lancashire it always has.
The pitch
Redfoot appeared in series 9, episode 10. Tim Smith asked for 300,000 pounds for 10 per cent of the business, valuing the company at 3 million pounds. The product was a folding shoe, men's and women's footwear designed to pack down small enough to travel with, aimed at commuters and holidaymakers who wanted a spare pair without the bulk.
It is a genuinely fiddly thing to manufacture well. A shoe has to hold its shape, support a foot properly, and still hinge without falling apart after a few weeks of use. That combination of comfort and mechanism is a harder sell to five investors than it sounds on paper.
Why no Dragon bit
None of the Dragons invested. Folding shoes sit in an odd spot: novel enough to catch attention, but niche enough that a Dragon has to believe in a sizeable repeat market to back it at that valuation. Footwear also carries manufacturing and sizing complexity that puts off investors who are not already in the trade.
A no-deal on Dragons' Den is not a verdict on the product. It is a verdict on whether five specific people wanted to write that specific cheque on that specific day. Redfoot's story since is a decent reminder of that.
There is also a practical constraint that footwear pitches run into again and again in the Den. Shoes need multiple sizes, multiple widths in some cases, and a return process that can handle fit problems at scale. That adds cost and complexity that a simpler product does not carry, and it is exactly the kind of overhead that makes an investor pause before committing six figures.
What happened after the cameras stopped
Redfoot Shoes Limited is the trading company behind the brand, registered in the UK and based in Bacup, Lancashire. Its Companies House record shows the company with an active status, which is the clearest paper trail there is for a small manufacturer that does not put its financial results in front of journalists every year.
The brand markets itself around a long shoemaking heritage in that part of Lancashire, a region with a genuine history in footwear manufacturing. That regional grounding, rather than a single TV moment, appears to be what has kept the business going.
Lancashire's footwear trade goes back well over a century, and businesses that lean on that heritage tend to build relationships with local wholesalers and independent shops that outlast any single product launch or media appearance. That is a different kind of durability to a viral moment, slower to build and less dramatic, but often sturdier.
Is Redfoot still in business?
Yes. The company's Companies House filing status is active, which means it is still a going concern in the eyes of UK company law, filing what it is required to file and not struck off or in the process of being dissolved.
That is a lower bar than proving strong sales, and we have not found a current, actively maintained ecommerce storefront selling the folding shoe range directly to the public at the time of writing. If you are hunting for a pair, the safest route is to search for current stockists rather than assume there is a live Redfoot-branded shop.
Where things stand now
Redfoot pitched in series 9 for 300,000 pounds and 10 per cent, walked away with no deal, and the underlying company remains active on the UK company register years later. That is not the same as a thriving direct-to-consumer brand, but it is a company that has not folded, which is more than plenty of Den alumni can claim.
If you came here to check whether Redfoot survived its no-deal, the answer is that the business is still on the books and still associated with footwear manufacturing in Lancashire, even if its retail presence today is quieter than it was around its television appearance. That is a common shape for a Den alumnus: not a headline success story, not a collapse either, just a small manufacturer that kept its doors open long after the cameras left.
Where to buy Redfoot Shoes
Still selling as of 2 July 2026. Check today's price and availability.
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See the full Redfoot Shoes deal breakdown and term sheet →
