Blue Badge Company, the design-led Bristol business that makes stylish-but-practical living aids, has secured a major investment to fund new product development and take on more research and development staff.
Founder and managing director Ellen Green signed the deal with Omani businesswoman and personal contact Muzna Al Said 18 months after she left TV show Dragons’ Den empty handed.
During her appearance on the programme Ellen asked for a £70,000 investment in return for a 7% stake in her fast-growing company. But she walked away with nothing after refusing an offer from retail tycoon Touker Suleyman of £70,000 in return for a 35% in her company. 
Now, with Blue Badge Company firmly established and employing 16 staff, Ellen has had her original valuation accepted – although the total investment sum has not been revealed.
Coupled with a new five-figure finance facility from HSBC, the investment will allow Ellen and her team to develop new product lines to complement their colourful range of living aids which include Blue Badge display wallets, lap trays, walking stick holders and wheat warmers. It will also allow the company to take on more staff in the research and product development team.
Blue Badge Company’s turnover has grown by more than 50% annually for three years, to reach almost £500,000 at the end of the last financial year.
The company, which moved to larger premises in Easton last August, has also won a major new contract to supply its flagship Blue Badge display wallets to 150 WH Smith stores across the country.
Ellen, who graduated from Dartington College of Arts with a first-class degree in Arts and Cultural Management, said: “We’re really excited to have Muzna on board as an investor and creative advisor to help us develop new product lines to expand our reach. This paired with the investment from HSBC will enable us to expand our range and recruit additional members of staff over the coming months.
“We want to make Blue Badge Company the go-to company for stylish independent lifestyle products.
“Retailers are only now waking up to the growing demand from disabled and ageing consumers who want home and travel aids with great designs, that are desirable lifestyle products rather than medical necessities.
“Blue Badge Company is leading the way in meeting this demand and has grown really fast in the last three years with contracts signed with several major UK retailers.
“Now we’ve moved into the new workshop we can start thinking about what other items we can offer.”
The firm is among the first to have identified the growing demand for stylish, design-led independent lifestyle products and travel aids, with disabled consumers now making up a fifth of the UK population – nearly 12m people, up from 10m 10 years ago – who, with their households, have a spending power of more than £200bn.
With the over 50s, who control over 75% of household wealth, likely to make up more than half of the population by 2030, Blue Badge Company’s success reflects the rise of the ‘purple pound’ – the growing spending power of disabled people.
The six-year-old company now supplies its products to Argos, Boots, Lloyds Pharmacy, Halfords and the Post Office. Its workforce of 15 permanent staff, with a handful of regular freelancers, hand craft all its products on site. Around 40% of its workforce are disabled or primary care givers, meaning the team has a first-hand appreciation of disabilities from mental health issues to physical impairments.
Blue Badge Company was launched in 2011 by a designer of Ellen’s who was fed up with what she saw as the universally dull, clinical products available to disabled consumers.
Ellen and her hand-stitched hundreds of eye-catching Blue Badge display wallets. Ellen took over the business as a sole director in 2013 and has since sold more than 190,000 of the wallets across the UK and expanded to produce a range of independent lifestyle products with designs inspired by William Morris, Roald Dahl, Emma Bridgewater and Lotta Jansdotter.
Muzna, who has a background in visual arts, said: “I’m thrilled to have invested in Blue Badge Co and joined their team in an advisory capacity to help on the creative side of the business.
“I have huge respect for Ellen as a businesswoman and think Blue Badge Company is a fantastic business with great potential to grow.
“The disability market is huge and due to our ageing population and better healthcare it is growing – Blue Badge Company have the opportunity to really lead the way in this market.”
HSBC area director for Bristol, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire, Sarah Lucas, added: “We’ve been working with Blue Badge Company for more than three years and in that time we’ve had the pleasure of watching this innovative business grow and evolve.
“This is the second facility we’ve put in place to support product development and to expand the team, so we’re looking forward to seeing these initiatives roll out over the coming weeks and months.”
Pictured above: Ellen Green, left, and Muzna Al Said
