Is Ocushield Still in Business? (2026 Update)

Patel and Hamir wanted £75,000 for 15% of the business, and Peter Jones and Tej Lalvani agreed on the spot. The twist here is what unfolded once the cameras stopped: the due diligence process ran long, the terms stopped suiting the founders, and they ultimately backed out of taking the money at all.

Instead of shutting down without an investor, the two went and found their own funding, and within about a year had raised roughly £1 million from other backers, at a valuation well above what the Den had offered.

The company's valuation has since climbed to roughly £7 million, it carries B Corp certification, and it won a King's Award for Enterprise, while its catalogue grew from the original screen protector into radiation-blocking accessories, eye masks and online eye tests.

The company says it has reached buyers in well over a hundred countries, with total customers running into the hundreds of thousands over its lifetime, a spread that does not happen without genuinely consistent performance across both retail and direct channels.

John Lewis and Urban Outfitters both carry the range today alongside the brand's own website, and there is no Amazon listing.

For anyone judging a Den pitch purely by whether the on-screen handshake turned into a wire transfer, this one is a useful corrective: a founder can say no to the exact terms filmed for television and still end up better off for it, since that handshake is only ever the opening scene, not the whole film.