Jenna likes the style of the idea – and Chloe says she is targeting festivals.

Touker, however, says she needs staff to get this thing properly off the ground.

Jones talks numbers straight away.

Chloe generated £7k revenue in year one (2022), then £25k, then 31k.

She has been profitable up to this last year, when she made a £500 loss.

Chloe is looking for £50k for a 15% stake in her London business.

She has repurposed the wedding-style white headgear she is wearing – and sticks hats on each of the Dragons. Peter Jones has a Union Jack-style number!

Chloe is preceded by dancers who do a full catwalk-style entrance before she emerges to begin her pitch.

Claiming that 80% of the fabric it uses come from ‘dead stock’ – offcuts and hats that have been thrifted – accessories include a mini spice hat (£120), a statement spice bag (£295), a sporty spice cap (£275), a chunky fat scarf (£60) and a spicy cap (£45).

Author: Jonathan Symcox

First up is Chloe Messer, the founder of Hatnspicy.

Messer’s brand, founded in 2022, transforms ‘preloved’ hats into huge headgear, with a focus on parties and festivals. 

Author: Jonathan Symcox

Of course, there are four regular Dragons running the rule over the four featured pitches tonight.

But how often are won over and invest? And how often do the deals actually go through?

Click below for all Dragons’ Den investments made by:

Peter Jones CBE

Steven Bartlett

Deborah Meaden

Touker Suleyman

Author: Jonathan Symcox

It’s been a long-held dream of Jenna Meek to appear on Dragons’ Den – and one which will be realised tonight.

When the REFY co-founder announced that she would join the line-up as a guest Dragon in 2026 to her 14,000 Instagram followers, she wrote: “Been manifesting this one for a long time and it still doesn’t feel real that it actually happened.”

Meek, who was on The One Show earlier this evening, has starred alongside her co-founder Jess Hunt on the first two editions of our annual Northern Leaders list.

But what else do we know about Jenna Meek? And how did she get here?

Author: Jonathan Symcox

Dragons’ Den is back in business tonight with a brand new series – and the heat is on. 

Cosmetic powerhouse Jenna Meek makes her fiery debut in this opening episode of series 23.

The CEO and co-founder of REFY Beauty joins Peter Jones, Deborah Meaden, Steven Bartlett and Touker Suleyman as they grill a fresh wave of hopefuls ‘chasing the deal of a lifetime’.

Join us from 7.45pm for build-up then 8pm for a running commentary – and have your say.

Author: Jonathan Symcox

Josh Magidson is looking to make it a hat-trick of FoodTech successes with HomeCooks.

Magidson’s student takeaway marketplace Eatstudent was acquired by Just Eat while he is also behind Zing Zing, which grew into the UK’s largest Chinese food delivery chain.

He founded HomeCooks in London in 2020 and has won backing from New Look founder Tom Singh and Leonard Picardo, who was one of Deliveroo’s first employees.

Now the startup, which aims to scale restaurant-quality meal prep across the UK, has raised £1.4 million and is also fundraising on crowdfunding platform Republic, where it is nearing its £750k target.

Listed Brave Bison has promoted Ric Hayes to chief strategy officer.

After three years as group strategy director at SocialChain – the business it acquired in early 2023 – Hayes will be stepping up to join Brave Bison’s executive leadership team, taking charge of a newly centralised strategy function across the three of the company’s agency brands: Brave Bison, SocialChain and Engage Digital Partners.

He will lead a connected team, including Brave Bison Performance’s director of strategy Brenda Imeson and SocialChain’s strategy and innovation director Gareth Harrison, on a mission to work alongside clients to help them adapt to shifting media and tech dynamics and seize emerging opportunities.

He will also work closely with other strategic leaders across the wider Brave Bison business including founder of the MiniMBA Professor Mark Ritson and MTM’s Richard Ellis to build new solutions that encompass consultancy, training and execution.

Author: Jonathan Symcox

A HealthTech aiming to make next-day blood testing a mainstream health habit across the UK has secured fresh investment and appointed Gabby Logan as brand ambassador.

Sussex-headquartered One Day Tests has also opened a state-of-the-art laboratory headquarters in West Sussex.

The 60,000 sq ft facility significantly increases the company’s internal capacity to process hundreds of biomarkers, usually within hours of arrival at the laboratory. 

An AI-driven chemistry startup, SOLVE Chemistry, has raised £4 million seed funding to expand its work helping pharmaceutical and agrochemical manufacturers bring products to market faster, more sustainably, and at lower cost.

The significant time and expense needed to design a chemical production line prevent drugs and agrochemicals from quickly reaching the people who need them, and exposes manufacturers to the risk that market conditions could change while they wait.

To scale chemical production more quickly, SOLVE Chemistry, a spinout from Imperial College London, uses novel ultra-high-throughput data collection hardware at its London lab to obtain accurate data on chemical reactions 20x faster than traditional high throughput experimentation, and trains AI models to predict the best way to manufacture chemicals.

Author: Jonathan Symcox

Lawyer Victoria Morrison-Hughes has launched The Legal Lexi, a startup which helps law firms to ensure clients genuinely understand legal costs and retainer terms — not merely sign them.

As a costs lawyer who has worked closely with solicitors across a wide range of practice areas, Morrison-Hughes says she is acutely aware of the regulatory, commercial and practical pressures law firms operate under.

Developed in response to rising solicitor–client disputes, increasing Legal Ombudsman complaints and heightened regulatory scrutiny, The Legal Lexi addresses one of the profession’s most persistent risk areas: misunderstandings around fees, scope of service and informed consent.

Author: Jonathan Symcox

A couple have launched their third business together to tackle the UK ‘succession crisis’.

Emma Margetts and Scott Winship met at Investec Asset Management 15 years ago and have since spent the past decade building, scaling and selling businesses together.

The couple sold their first business Alpha Exchange, an investment research exchange for the capital markets community, to Visible Alpha – now S&P Global – and say ClearScore snapped up their second venture BetterCents, a digital debt manager.

Their latest business Emsco Partners has launched its fund to tackle a growing problem.

Rex Software has appointed Dr Liron Nehmadi as its chief product and technology officer to lead product, development and design across the entire group.

The London-based all-in-one estate agency platform announced the appointment following a series of new product launches, acquisitions and rebrand, which brought its expanding suite of technology products under a single identity.

Liron brings a wealth of experience in product and development, most recently holding the post of vice president at AI-driven risk intelligence and management platform, EverC.

Prior to this, he held a string of senior product positions at leading technology organisations, including three years as chief product officer at Catch of the Day, where he led product, development, UI, and analytics. During his tenure, the company scaled from AU$250m to AU$750m in revenue, culminating in its acquisition by Wesfarmers.

LUX has secured its first institutional investment, led by SFC Capital, as part of a £277.5k pre-seed raise.

The Oxfordshire business delivers on-site, on-demand hydrogen production, storage, and dispensing, addressing a key infrastructure challenge in the hydrogen sector by removing complex logistics and enabling practical deployment across transportation, manufacturing, and energy applications.

London-based FinTech Novum Investment Management has secured a significant equity investment from a UK local government pension fund to support the launch of Doris, an investment technology designed to tackle one of the biggest barriers to investing: fear of open-ended risk.

The backing supports Novum’s next phase of growth as Doris moves towards market within the FCA’s regulatory framework.

Novum says the model has also attracted backing from government and parliamentary figures, highlighting its wider relevance to UK growth and participation in investing.

Author: Jonathan Symcox

A London-headquartered digital sponsorship activation platform used by top Premier League clubs has been acquired.

WSC Sports, a sports content automation platform, has swooped for Partnerbrite, which enables brands to activate fan engagement through targeted campaigns. 

The acquisition expands WSC Sports’ platform with campaign execution and audience activation tools, allowing sponsorships to be planned, activated, and measured without sharing rightsholder fan data.

Tribal Group plc has reported a positive close to FY25, delivering revenue and adjusted EBITDA slightly ahead of the recently upwardly revised market expectations.

The provider of software and services to the international education market said ARR increased by 11% to £63.3m (FY24: £57m), driven by both new customer wins and upgrades.

It substantially improved its net cash position at 31st December 2025 at £11.4m, significantly ahead of current market forecasts (FY24: net debt of £3.2m), reflecting a considerable improvement in profitability, reduced capex requirements within the business, an exceptional working capital performance and a one-off advance customer payment of £3.2m.

It said the strong financial performance reflected healthy demand for Student Information Solutions, with key go-lives including University of Warwick, University of Wolverhampton and University of the Arts London.

Microlise Group plc says revenue for FY2025 is expected to be in-line with revised market expectations.

The provider of transport management software to fleet operators reported 16% underlying recurring revenue growth from direct customers and £5m of annualised cost savings executed.

Revenue for the year ending 31st December 2025 was £84 (FY2024: £81m), representing growth of 3.7%. Annual recurring revenue increased 4.6% to £59.1m (FY 2024: £56.6m).

The group’s net cash as of 31st December 2025 was ahead of revised expectations at £16.7m, up from £11.4m at 31st December 2024.