Is Staels Design Still in Business? (2026 Update)
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Look for Staels Design on AmazonFull story →Staels Design pitched a cooling backrest cushion for wheelchair users, marketed as wheelAIR, in series 15, with founder Corien Staels seeking seventy-five thousand pounds for thirty percent of the company, and both Peter Jones and Deborah Meaden ended up backing the deal.
Public filings point to the company going into liquidation a few years after the show.
Solving A Problem Most Pitches Never Touch
Heat and prolonged pressure against a wheelchair's backrest is a genuine, under-discussed source of discomfort and skin problems for full-time wheelchair users, and a product built specifically to address it gave the pitch a credibility that purely cosmetic inventions rarely manage.
Getting two Dragons to back the same product, at this size of ask, suggests the panel saw both a real unmet need and a founder who understood the underlying medical problem, not just a clever gadget.
What The Filings Point To
Records referenced in older coverage describe an interim liquidator being appointed to the company in early 2023, with the specialist firm Hilco Streambank brought in to help sell off the intellectual property and remaining business assets, the usual route for salvaging value out of a brand that has stopped trading under its original structure.
That does not necessarily mean the wheelAIR product itself has vanished entirely, since IP sales can lead to a product resurfacing under new ownership.