School friends told they’d be ‘bankrupt by 30’ bag £165k investment

Two school friends have proven their parents wrong after bagging £165,000 worth of investment on Dragons’ Den – despite being warned that they would be ‘bankrupt by 30’.

Andy Aitken and Josh Mihill appeared on the show’s finale on Thursday in a bid to secure investment for their new mobile network company. 

Honest Mobile was pitched as the solution to bad signal and expensive roaming charges to Deborah Meaden, Peter Jones, Touker Suleyman and Steven Bartlett. 

They explained: ‘We spoke to thousands of people before we started and it was obvious that thousands of people really disliked their mobile networks.

‘They get you into long contracts and put the prices up every year. 

‘We are doing things differently – your bill goes down every year just for sticking with us and we’re about to launch a smart sim that gives you four times better signal in the UK and free roaming in 182 countries around the world.’

The pair added: ‘We are aiming to do things as sustainably as possible. We are the UK’s first B Corp certified mobile network.

‘So far we have 8,000 happy customers and our customer satisfaction score is four times higher than some of the big networks.’ 

The duo were hoping to secure a £110,000 investment for a 1 per cent stake in their company and they managed to walk away with even more. 

However, the dragons were as shrewd as ever and Deborah offered the pair half the money for a 1 per cent stake. 

Meanwhile, Steven said that he would give the men £110,000 – but he wanted a 3 per cent stake in the company.  

Following a brief period of deliberation, the duo decided to take both dragons on board, securing £165,000 worth of investment for a 4 per cent stake in the company.

The win marked another milestone for the best friends, who revealed that they actually met on their first day at school.

The pair are so close that they were also best man at each other’s wedding and could be seen embracing as they left the Dragons’ Den. 

Over the years, the Dragons have occasionally invested large sums and one of the show’s biggest ever success stories is now worth a staggering £140million. 

Marisa Poster and Teddie Levenfiche, founders of matcha firm PerfectTed, have made history by securing the show’s biggest ever payday by offering an alternative to high-caffeine energy drinks such as Red Bull.

Levenfiche and Poster impressed the Dragons when they appeared on the show in 2023, with two of the panel, Steven and Peter, ultimately purchasing a 5 per cent stake in the company for £50,000.

Just two years after the pair secured the life-changing investment, PerfectTed has now ‘grown rapidly’ and gained the best returns for the Dragons in the show’s history. 

It was recently reported that the company is worth £140million and has recently secured further investment from the venture capital firm Felix Capital.

Back in May, it was already predicting a huge £30million of annual revenue, with bosses adding it was working towards ‘£100million’.

PerfectTed prides itself on its range of healthy, matcha-based energy drinks made from all natural ingredients that provide customers with a boost without the large amounts of added ingredients contained in traditional energy drinks.

The firm claims to be the largest supplier of matcha products in Europe and recently revealed its ambition to become the world’s first billion-dollar matcha brand.

Its success has seen it branch out from drinks to also provide coffee machine pods, flavoured matcha and latte products.

The Dragons were instrumental in the company’s success, with Steven’s investment fund, Flight Fund, said to have allowed the company to significantly scale up its operation. 

Appearing on the show, Poster and Levenfiche, then 25, asked the Dragons for £50,000 for a 5 per cent stake in their business.

They said they had put £250,000 of their own savings into the business, which sells natural energy drinks made using matcha, as well as raising £125,000 from family.

The dragons were impressed by their pitch, with all five business people vying for a stake in the company. 

Dragons’ Den airs on BBC One and is available to stream on iPlayer.