? for orders outside the uk go to flowban.com

Nova-FloTM was exhibited at the 2007 M&E Building Services Event at London Olympia in October. Apart from gathering significant interest from attendees and visitors to the show, Nova-Flo was awarded the Working Building Week magazine award of 'Best Innovation in Building Services 2007'.

James Barnham was delighted to be presented with the award and was briefly interviewed afterwards.

We are excited to announce that the United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office (formally known as the Patent Office) have recently granted our UK Patent for Nova-FloTM. This is very exciting, not only because it provides a measure of protection for all the hard work that we have done in designing Nova-FloTM, but also because it validates our view that Nova-FloTM really is a truly unique product.

As we have had, and continue to enjoy, huge interest in Nova-FloTM, we thought it only fair that we should bring you up to speed on recent developments in the Nova-FloTM story.

We took the decision early in 2007 not to advertise or promote our product until we had a clearer idea of when we could sell our Nova-FloTM units. Despite this, people with a particular need for our product have found us, mainly through the web. In particular, we have received a lot of interest from the hotel industry throughout the world, as the problem of overflowing baths would appear to occur all too frequently for them. A hotel with an overflowing bath has a compounded problem because the water tends to damage (and put out of action) not only the room in which the bath is located, but also the room or rooms immediately below it. The cost of damage to the rooms as well as the damage to the reputation of the hotel can be considerable.

We were going to launch our earlier Nova-FloTM designs throughout the world, but recent experience (gained in no small part from talks with hotels in very exotic locations) has shown that different countries have widely varying requirements. To meet these requirements we have comprehensively redesigned Nova-FloTM. We are now pleased to be able to say that the new and improved Nova-FloTM is currently being tooled in the UK for regulatory testing in both the UK and USA. We have considered separately offering a UK specific unit and one for use outside of the UK, but we figured our friends in the UK should also benefit from the numerous improvements that we have made to the original Nova-FloTM designs. We are therefore pleased to announce that we have decided to offer the new and improved Nova-FloTM device to all, albeit at a slightly higher price point than original designs would have indicated.

The last bit of news that we have for you is that the tooling and machinery for production of the Nova-FloTM is currently being finalised here in the UK and the first units should roll off the assembly line (and be available for purchase!) in early 2008.

BBC 2's Dragons' Den offers budding entrepreneurs the opportunity to pitch their idea or product to the Dragons (five business experts) in the hope of persuading the millionaires to take the plunge and invest in their product.

In early 2006 James Barnham, the inventor of Nova-FloTM decided to pitch his business to the Dragons for investment to manufacture Nova-FloTM and take it to market.

Of filming, James says:
"It was very daunting as you don't get to see the Den or meet the Dragons until it is your turn to be filmed, although you are briefed on the type of questions to expect. Also with the studio crew watching and the studio lighting it was a surreal environment, almost like walking into your television set, as well as being very hot in there! Once you climb the steps and enter the room, your throat goes dry, you start to perspire and you forget your lines! Luckily for me I took a couple of deep breaths and it all came back to me."

Filming lasted for about an hour with no retakes but this was edited considerably for the TV.

James feels that the BBC sadly cut out some of the best bits, but concludes that it was very exciting although the most frightening experience he has ever had.

The offers of investment were gratefully received although the 40% equity stake was far more than could be seriously considered, so James walked away from the deal.
Since the show, offers of investment have been flooding in (excuse the pun!) and the decision to take on a number of smaller investors was made.

In January 2007 an investment round was completed which bettered the Dragons' offer enormously. This will now enable full production to commence. The investment opportunity resulted in the company being seriously oversubscribed on the first day, so sadly we had no choice but to turn away a number of investors, of whom we would have been very keen to involve.

In August 2007 James was featured on 'Dragons' Den Where are they now', following up on one year since he entered the den.

The BBCs Dragons' Den site can be viewed at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dragonsden

The Nova-FloTM demonstration models have been exhibited at:

International Hotel Conference at the Rome Cavalieri Hilton Oct 2007
M&E Exhibition in London's Olympia Oct 2007
Interbuild at Birmingham's NEC in 2006
The Autumn Ideal Home Show in London 's Earls Court in 2005


Thanks to all those who visited our stands for a demonstration.

Look out for us in 2008!
Details to follow of upcoming exhibitions.