Jewish-run hand sanitiser gel company scores £80k Dragons’ Den investment
Peter Jones and Touker Suleyman claimed a shared 20 per cent stake in Let’s Sanitise, founded by Josh and Rachel Cummins and Lee Hoppen
A Jewish trio who developed a revolutionary hand sanitiser gel have secured investment during an intense exchange on hit BBC show Dragons’ Den, broadcast Thursday.
Husband and wife Josh and Rachel Cummins, and their co-founder Lee Hoppen, walked away with a combined £80,000 from Peter Jones and Touker Suleyman for a shared 20 per cent stake in their company, Let’s Sanitise.
Rachel and Josh are members of Borehamwood & Elstree synagogue, and Rachel and Hoppen went to King Solomon school in London.
Following an intense line of questioning from Jones, who initially looked set to claim he is out, the Let’s Sanitise co-founders, Hoppen and Joshua Cummins, interjected and made a convincing plea for his investment.
The entrepreneurs launched Let’s Sanitise during the pandemic, when their photobooth business was affected.
Hoppen helped a local charity by providing warehouse space and equipment to create personal care packs for those on the front line of the pandemic. From there, the team recognised that solutions for hand hygiene in the office environment were critical for the safety of staff and customers.
Using suppliers from their existing Megabooth business, the trio created sanitiser stations and reached out to their existing customer base, supplying branded sanitiser stations to clients including HC ONE – Britain’s largest care home operators, Prezzo, Wagamama, Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, and Headingly Stadium.
“We quickly realised the need for hand sanitiser but thought those available in the market were of poor quality,” said Josh Cummins.
“They left hands feeling very dry and smelling like tequila! In fact, some of the sanitiser products were so strong, they stripped the paint off the stations. It was hard to imagine what these sanitisers were doing to human hands and skin.
“We saw an opportunity to revolutionise the market. We worked with a supplier in the UK to develop a sanitiser formula specifically to be gentle on the skin and to smell great so that hand sanitiser could be just as enjoyable as applying a luxury lotion or spraying a perfume scent.”
Made with 75% alcohol, the award-winning hand sanitisers have been clinically proven to kill 99.99% of bacteria and viruses – a must-have in current times. Available in gel and mist form, they are formulated to be kind to the skin, deeply hydrating, and non-sticky.
Let’s Sanitise achieved a turnover of £1.4 million in its first year of business and scaled to £2 million in under two years. The company has donated over 20,000 bottles of sanitisers to community organisations, care homes, schools, and charities and also donates 1 per cent of total sales to approved environmental non-profits through the 1 per cent for the Planet campaign.
Thank you for helping to make Jewish News the leading source of news and opinion for the UK Jewish community. Today we're asking for your invaluable help to continue putting our community first in everything we do.
For as little as £5 a month you can help sustain the vital work we do in celebrating and standing up for Jewish life in Britain.
Jewish News holds our community together and keeps us connected. Like a synagogue, it’s where people turn to feel part of something bigger. It also proudly shows the rest of Britain the vibrancy and rich culture of modern Jewish life.
You can make a quick and easy one-off or monthly contribution of £5, £10, £20 or any other sum you’re comfortable with.
100% of your donation will help us continue celebrating our community, in all its dynamic diversity...
Engaging
Being a community platform means so much more than producing a newspaper and website. One of our proudest roles is media partnering with our invaluable charities to amplify the outstanding work they do to help us all.
Celebrating
There’s no shortage of oys in the world but Jewish News takes every opportunity to celebrate the joys too, through projects like Night of Heroes, 40 Under 40 and other compelling countdowns that make the community kvell with pride.
Pioneering
In the first collaboration between media outlets from different faiths, Jewish News worked with British Muslim TV and Church Times to produce a list of young activists leading the way on interfaith understanding.
Campaigning
Royal Mail issued a stamp honouring Holocaust hero Sir Nicholas Winton after a Jewish News campaign attracted more than 100,000 backers. Jewish Newsalso produces special editions of the paper highlighting pressing issues including mental health and Holocaust remembrance.
Easy access
In an age when news is readily accessible, Jewish News provides high-quality content free online and offline, removing any financial barriers to connecting people.
Voice of our community to wider society
The Jewish News team regularly appears on TV, radio and on the pages of the national press to comment on stories about the Jewish community. Easy access to the paper on the streets of London also means Jewish News provides an invaluable window into the community for the country at large.
We hope you agree all this is worth preserving.
