Tracey McGillivray was so busy preparing for a factory inspection in late January that she didn’t realize CBC had posted the trailer for Axtion Independence Mobility’s coming appearance on Dragons’ Den.

So she was flabbergasted that night when she checked the Halifax-based company’s social media accounts and saw video on the company she co-founded had gone viral.

And that was nothing to the online response following the actual episode, in which she and colleague Suling Duong pitched the Action’s Raymex Lift, a walker that can help seniors back up if they fall.

“We ended up with 7.5 million views in seven days – it's now up to close to 10 million . . . between Instagram and TikTok,” said the Axtion CEO in an interview last week. “We had a quarter of a million interactions. We had over 10,000 shares. But what was really impactful was we  . . . had over 60,000 visits to our website. And what was really powerful about that was that Dragons’ Den in their posts did not include a link to our website.”

For McGillivray, the outpouring of interest proved a point that she and Co-Founder Liam Maaskant believed in when they conceived the Raymex Lift eight years ago: there is a crying need in the elder-care market for a device that can not only help frail seniors move but also pick them up when they fall.

The Raymex Lift (named for McGillivray’s father, Ray, whose experiences inspired its creation) is a combination of a rollator walker and a powered seat that can be raised and lowered from ground level to about two feet up, and vice versa.

In the last month, Axtion (pronounced the same as “action”) launched the product, which is manufactured in Amherst, NS, under a contract with Halifax’s Precise Design Engineering Solutions. The product is now being sold in Canada, the U.S., and the U.K., and Europe is due to come on stream soon. McGillivray hopes to add Australia and Malaysia before long.

Its network of sales agents includes Pisces Healthcare Solutions, which sells through the Veterans Healthcare Administration, the largest health authority in the U.S.

The company has grown with the support of various groups, including Invest Nova Scotia, and it developed Raymex largely through non-dilutive funding from these parties. During the appearance on Dragons’ Den, the team struck a deal with investor Arlene Dickenson. Due diligence on that agreement is continuing. What the televised deal did do was establish a valuation for the company, and that helped to raise about $750,000 in equity financing from several investors, many from Nova Scotia.

Admitting that the company’s production is now “in catch-up mode” after the demand created by a successful launch, McGillivray is pleased with the launch – and with the fact that the online engagement has remained steady in the month since the Dragons’ Den appearance.

So this year her focus is on manufacturing enough units to meet demand and expand distribution to more companies.

“I think 2026 is all about initially just trying to catch up with the demand that's out there and we will do that over the coming couple of months,” said McGillivray. “We've had some outreach. . . . so I think you're going to see some expansion of our global footprint start to take hold.”