Third in the den is Active Hands Company founder Rob Smith and his business development manager Jo Gumbley. 

Based near Solihull in the West Midlands and launched in 2007, the firm has developed adaptive gripping aids to help people with reduced hand function live more independently.

Smith had the idea in the late 1990s after he experienced difficulties following a spinal cord injury.

They are asking for £75k for a 5% stake in the business.

It turned over £738k last year.

Steven can’t pin down John’s ambition and goals – so to speak – and is out.

Touker isn’t impressed and is out.

It isn’t for Tinie either.

Deborah can’t see how a Dragon will add value to the business. She’s out.

Peter says he wants to pick up the conversation about the foundation away from the Den but he’s out. He says John should be proud to be a ‘social entrepreneur’.

Quizzed by Deborah, he says he made a £59k loss last year.

However he has made a profit in previous years.

He says making hires has cost the business the most money and is planning to return to profitability soon.

Steven asks about the scalability of the business. He’s not impressed by the potential £1.25m annual revenue.

Peter says he can do this himself – all his companies run their own charity events. He has had a foundation for 20 years and says this doesn’t feel like a for-profit organisation but would be interested in folding it into his foundation.

A goal has been set up and Tinie saves all penalties… except for Deborah’s!

“You let that in,” she complains.

John says he had revenue of £797k last year and has generated more than £3m to date.

He is looking for £50k for 5% of the business, and wants to expand its geographic reach.

Second to pitch is Business Fives founder John McClarey. 

Based in Edinburgh, the startup encourages businesses to enter teams into five-a-side football tournaments, golf days and mixed touch rugby events.

Founded in 2016, it has hosted events across the UK and Ireland and donates 10% of its revenue to charity alongside the money raised by teams. 

It is now branching out into eSports.

Unfortunately Sean and Alex entered the business into voluntary liquidation in September 2025 – after filming – with ‘escalating’ debts of more than £250,000.

The brothers told The Grocer that they bore no grudges against Tesco, which made up a massive percentage of its revenue, and that its Achilles’ Heel was the fact that their target market typically avoids the bakery section of supermarkets.

You can read more about it below.

The firm has raised £800,000 including £260k from crowdfunding for the chewy cookies, which are in the fresh bakery section and are made using pea protein, prebiotic fibre and its own low-sugar chocolate.

Available in four flavours, the high-protein, low-sugar cookie brand launched in 2023 following two years of research.

Jones is out.

Tinie is very nice in also saying he is out – “if you’ve lost your friends and family’s money, mine will probably go too”.

Deborah Meaden is out as she is vegan and cannot taste it.

Steve Bartlett says the cookies taste very nice for a health product, but he is out.

Touker is also out.

They tell the judges that Tesco stock its healthy cookies in 750 stores and it is part of the supermarket’s accelerator programme.

An exclusivity deal is set to expire.

However they are only selling four products per store per week.

They tell Touker that they have made losses of £150k, £325k and £245k in each of their three years of operation.

He says that if Tesco drops their product, they have a problem.

Peter doesn’t rate the product and says they should have been working night and day to get their next customer. He’s very hard on them.

The first to pitch are brothers Alex and Sean Brassill, co-founders of Jnck Bakery who formerly worked as directors at THG.

It sells chewy cookies made using pea protein, prebiotic fibre and its own low-sugar chocolate.

The high-protein, low-sugar cookie brand launched in 2023.

They are looking for 100k for 5% of the business.

Raspberry Pi shares surge as CEO buys stock

Published: February 19, 2026 at 1:49 pm

Author: Jonathan Symcox

Shares in Raspberry Pi have surged after CEO Eben Upton (pictured) bought stock in the company.

A dip last year and this saw its shares fall below its 280p IPO offer price in June 2024, and way off its peak of 766p.

They fell as low as 257p despite a positive year-end trading update after admitting that supply uncertainty remains around the memory boards used in its products.

However a 42% rise yesterday saw them return above £4, and they have remained there today.

Social media ‘buzz’ around the use of the small computer boards for running AI agents has also intensified, which may partly explain the rise.

Pharmacy2U, the UK’s largest online pharmacy, has entered a strategic partnership with Reset Health, experts in the personalised management of chronic disease, to deliver next-generation digital weight management support to patients using weight loss medication across the UK.

The partnership provides the foundation for a long-term transformational collaboration in the UK obesity market, delivering end-to-end treatment and care for the growing population using GLP-1 medications.

The collaboration launches in the first quarter of 2026 with Pharmacy2U patients receiving Reset Health’s digitally delivered wraparound care alongside their weight management treatment, combining medication with continuous clinical support for better engagement, experience and sustained outcomes.

The partnership will see delivery of GLP-1s direct to patients across the UK while providing the clinical wraparound care essential for sustained results.

Former nurse tackles ‘UK maternal health crisis’ with Matresa

Published: February 19, 2026 at 1:07 pm

Author: Jonathan Symcox

A former nurse is tackling a maternal health crisis in the UK after witnessing the lack of structured support available to mothers both clinically and socially.

Mari-Carmen Sanchez-Morris has raised £315,000 for her startup Matresa, which aims to provide mothers with personalised, continuous care throughout the maternal journey – from preconception through pregnancy and into postpartum recovery.

Sanchez-Morris’s experience working in paediatric intensive care, combined with her own journey through motherhood, revealed how maternal health needs often go unseen once a baby is born. 

Also founder of The FIT MAMA Way app, she is a health and wellness coach focused on new and expectant mothers.

Energy software provider POWWR has announced a host of new hires.

The Manchester-based business welcomes Jo Hannaford as product director, Stewart Anderson as head of development and Graham Cockcroft as finance director.

This is the first stage in a widespread recruitment drive this year that is expected to lead to headcount growth of between 30-40%.

Hannaford joins POWWR from energy software company Correla, where she was product portfolio director. Prior to Correla, Hannaford worked for Shell Energy, npower, and John Lewis.

Anderson most recently worked at the NCC Group, where he was director of global applications and software/platforms.

Cockcroft joins POWWR from PwC, where he led the delivery of innovative solutions that drove digital transformation for clients across various industries. Prior to PwC, he worked for Sopra Steria, Shared Services Connected and BT.

POWWR has also promoted David Sheldrake to chief revenue officer, Andre Vejdani to head of innovation and Clair Staines to chief people officer.

SatVu, a UK-based thermal intelligence company, has closed a £30m funding round bringing its total equity funding to £60m.

The firm, which reveals operational activity and infrastructure performance from space, is accelerating from single-satellite demonstration to execution of a multi-satellite constellation.

The round completes with a strategic investment from the NATO Innovation Fund (NIF), together with British Business Bank, Space Frontiers Fund II (with SPARX Asset Management Co. Ltd. as the Fund Manager), and Presto Tech Horizons, strengthening SatVu’s institutional backing as it scales toward persistent, sovereign-relevant thermal intelligence, unlocking activity insights previously unavailable from commercial sources.

John Williams has been appointed as chief performance officer by accountancy group Dains.

He will help shape Dains’ strategic plans and operating models as it continues to grow both organically and through acquisitions.

Williams joins from Radius, where he spent seven years as director of finance across the fuel, telematics and emerging business units. During this time, Williams led more than 18 acquisitions with a combined enterprise value in excess of £200 million.

Before joining Radius, Williams spent more than 20 years with EY and Deloitte between 1997 and 2018. 

Leonard Curtis, the private equity-backed professional services group, has appointed its first head of corporate development to drive M&A, partnerships and strategic growth. 

Logan Mantle joins the fast-growing multi-disciplinary team at Leonard Curtis, bringing vast experience into the business, which includes an eight-year spell in the corporate finance advisory team at Deloitte.

Leonard Curtis, which is headquartered in Manchester, has over 30 years’ experience in providing restructuring, legal, funding, M&A advisory and business services to SMEs and corporates throughout the UK and offshore. 

Pollen Street Capital took a majority stake in Leonard Curtis last August with a key focus on M&A to meet ambitious expansion targets.

The group’s acquisition activity will be focused on its restructuring and insolvency, legal and funding service lines. 

It says Logan is a proven performer in identifying and executing M&A transactions for owner-managed, privately owned, private equity-backed, and corporate businesses. These range from £10m to £300m across multiple sectors.

His expertise includes acquisitions, disposals, buyouts, finance raising, and strategic reviews and extends to advising on cross-border transactions, including those in North America and Europe.

CUBE has acquired 4CRisk.ai, a Silicon Valley-headquartered RegTech business whose agentic AI platform delivers policy and procedure mapping to regulatory obligations, controls and risks.

Founded in 2019, 4CRisk also provides specialised corporate compliance solutions to meet evolving requirements across cyber, AI, privacy, labour laws and ESG.

CUBE, backed by private equity firm Hg, says the deal strengthens its ability to deliver fully automated compliance and risk solutions, complementing its existing capabilities in regulatory compliance, operational risk and regulatory change management.

ClearBank has appointed a new European CEO and the opening of a branch in France.

Tristan Kirchner joins the tech-enabled clearing bank as CEO of ClearBank Europe N.V. to spearhead the bank’s accelerating expansion across the continent.

Kirchner brings more than 25 years of payments and financial services experience, having held senior leadership roles at Uber Payments, Barclays and Visa.

Based in Amsterdam, Kirchner will lead ClearBank’s European operations and long‑term strategy. He will work closely with Mark Fairless, ClearBank Group CEO, and Maurice Oostendorp, Chair of ClearBank Europe Supervisory Board, to shape expansion into new markets and evolve the bank’s services across the region.

His deep understanding of Europe’s regulatory and payments landscape will be instrumental as ClearBank scales its presence across a dynamic payments market.

Boohoo founder Kamani invests £8m in new fundraise

Published: February 19, 2026 at 9:58 am

Author: Chris Maguire

Boohoo co-founder Mahmud Kamani has invested £8m as part of Debenhams Group’s latest £40m fundraise.

Earlier this week, Debenhams Group outlined its plans for the £35m fundraise in a statement to the London Stock Exchange – triggering a 14 per cent drop in Boohoo Group’s share price.

In a positive update this morning, the company said following ‘investor demand significantly in excess of £35m’ it had upscaled the fundraise c.£40m.

As part of the fundraise, it has been revealed Kamani invested £8m together with his close relatives and related trusts to acquire 44m shares.

Outgoing non-executive director Iain McDonald invested £3m in return for 16.6m shares while group CEO Dan Finley invested £150,000 for 833,333 shares.

Frasers Group acquired nearly 60m shares and remains the company’s biggest shareholder.

Online retail giant Boohoo Group rebranded as Debenhams Group in 2025 and its brands include Debenhams, Karen Millen, boohoo, MAN and PLT.

Following the successful completion of the fundraise, Iain McDonald informed the company he would be stepping down as  non-executive director and chair of the renumeration committee with immediate effect.