GripIt Fixings – the brainchild of 20-year-old Jordan Daykin and Dragon’s Den’s biggest success story to date – appeared on Dragon’s Den Pitches to Riches on Sunday February 27 as Richard Osman revisited some of the most extraordinary moments in the show’s history.
Jordan first appeared on the BBC show last August, aged 18, with his universal plasterboard fixing, securing an £80,000 investment from Deborah Meaden and becoming the youngest ever contestant to bag an investment in the Den.
GripIt Fixings manufactures a revolutionary design of universal fixing designed for use with all types of plasterboard installation, holding loads of up to 225kg for everything from curtains to radiators.
Jordan came up with the idea for GripIt in 2008 while installing curtain rails with his then 74 year-old grandfather. It took the pair just a matter of days to come up with a prototype for the fixing (in the garden shed!) and the patent was granted in 2009, when Jordan was 14.
The product is now sold in over 3,000 stores across the UK – including B&Q, Wickes, Screwfix, Currys, PlumbCenter and Plumbase – and is available in 33 countries, including the US and Australia.
The business has grown considerably in the last year and in just the first two months of 2016, GripIt Fixings has already exceeded its 2015 annual turnover, making it well on track for its target of a £2.5 million turnover this year.
GripIt Fixings employs 20 members of staff at its 9,000 ft2 warehouse in Melksham, Wiltshire, and aims to recruit a further ten people in 2016.