Germ Genie gets going despite Dragons’ Den disappointment

Despite the huge disappointment of a deal with TV “Dragons” Theo Paphitis and Deborah Meaden falling through over the summer, James and Duncan Louttit have launched their brand-new keyboard sanitiser, Germ Genie.

Germ Genie uses ultra-violet light to kill microbes on keyboards many times a day.

Unlike wipes or sprays, Germ Genie requires no user intervention, so that the keyboard can be sanitised before each new person uses it. Germ Genie will sanitise the keyboard up to 40 times per shift, compared to most methods which happen weekly at best, and much less often in most cases. The product uses the same technology as many water purification systems and is effective against a large array of microbes like MRSA, C.Difficile, Influenza, the common cold, E.Coli and many more.

James, the Managing Director of Falcon Innovations, pitched the product and the company to the famous investors at a filming session in June, and impressed them enough to be offered £80,000 for a stake in the company.

His initial 3-minute pitch turned into over an hour and a half of grilling from the Dragons at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire. Duncan Bannatyne showed interest in the business, but it was Deborah and Theo who shook hands with the entrepreneurs at the end of the session, for £15,000 more than James had asked for.

Three weeks later the deal fell through with James and Duncan a little bemused about the reasons why. Later on in the summer they found out that the BBC had decided not to show their experience in the Den. They pushed hard to find out why, but were only told it was for “editorial reasons”. Despite this setback, they have worked very hard on developing their product and bringing it to market.

They launched it this autumn to their core target markets, hot desks and multi-user keyboards. James said, “It was a great shame that the Dragons decided not to go ahead with the deal, and we were very disappointed that the BBC decided not to show it, but we still own all of our company, and the response from our potential customers is very positive”. The father-and-son team have been in discussions with a potential distributor in Japan, and have built a scientific base to support their product with Reading and Hertfordshire Universities. They are full of hope and expectation for the product launch. Other investors are currently in talks and the future looks very bright.

27 Oct 2010

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