Vertiball, the Fredericton-based manufacturing concern, appeared on Dragons’ Den on CBC last week and walked away with a $420,000 investment by marketing whiz Arlene Dickinson.

Once the deal closes, Dickinson will have a 17 percent stake in the company, meaning the investment values Vertiball at about $2.5 million.

Liam Floyd at Huddle caught up with Vertiball CEO Curtis Kennedy to get the full skinny on the deal and what the investment from Dickinson means. You can read the Huddle article here.

Vertiball manufactures a portable, wall-mounted device that people can use to massage their backs and reduce pain. It features a mounting device that fastens to a wall so users can position it at the position that soothes.

Kennedy caught the entrepreneurship bug at University of New Brunswick, won a few competitions with the Vertiball idea, and produced 220 prototypes before he had a version he liked. As of last April, he’d raised a total of $400,000 in non-dilutive funding. Then the three-member Vertiball team took the product through a Kickstarter campaign that raised $61,000 – more than seven times the target.