Is Red Button Design Still in Business? (2026 Update)
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Look for Red Button Design on AmazonFull story →Amanda Jones and James Brown pitched Red Button Design, a device for transporting, storing and purifying water for people without reliable clean supply, wanting £50,000 for a tenth of the business, and reached an agreement in the studio.
The company no longer exists.
A Cause-Led Pitch, A Modest Ask
Reportedly built by University of Glasgow students, the project targeted developing-world water access rather than a typical consumer problem, a genuinely harder sell in front of a panel focused on commercial return rather than social impact alone.
A deal was reached for the amount asked, but the students chose a different route once filming wrapped.
Choosing A Grant Over Equity
Rather than take on a Dragon as an investor, the team accepted a £45,000 research grant from Oxford University, funding that did not cost them any ownership, to keep developing what became known as the Midomo purifier.
That is a meaningful choice. Grant money leaves a founder's stake intact in a way outside investment never does, and it suited a research-heavy, socially driven project better than a commercial backer looking for a straightforward return.
Where Things Stand
Development under the Midomo name carried on for a while as a reverse-osmosis purification system, but the original company was struck off in 2014, and nothing indicates it kept operating as a functioning business beyond that.
There is nothing to buy under the Red Button Design name today, though the idea itself, getting clean water to people who badly need it, remains a genuinely worthwhile one.