50 Fun Facts About Dragons' Den

Dragons' Den is a British remake of a business show first broadcast in 2001 in which country?

Japan first saw the show tucked away after midnight in a single region before it earned a national prime-time slot; Britain's 2005 remake was the first made abroad.

Which reggae musician sang his 2007 Dragons' Den pitch for a jerk barbecue sauce and won £50,000?

Levi Roots had been spotted at a food trade show by a BBC producer, and soon after the broadcast his Reggae Reggae Sauce was on the shelves of 600 supermarkets.

What kind of product is Trunki, which left Dragons' Den without a deal in 2006 yet sold millions?

A ride-on suitcase for children, Trunki had its strap tugged off by a dragon in mid-pitch, yet inventor Rob Law went on to sell more than three million of them.

Which BBC economics editor was the presenter of Dragons' Den when the show launched in 2005?

Evan Davis kept the job while his day job changed around him, leaving the economics desk in 2008 for Radio 4's Today programme and later fronting Newsnight.

Which Top Gear presenter pitched a tiny wearable car called the P45 on Dragons' Den in 2013?

Jeremy Clarkson billed the P45 as the smallest roadworthy car in motoring history, and the best offer the sketch earned him was £1 for 1% of the business.

Which host of The Diary of a CEO podcast joined Dragons' Den in 2021 as its youngest dragon yet?

Steven Bartlett co-founded the marketing agency Social Chain in 2014, and the BBC later rebuked him for wearing jewellery on screen from a brand he promoted online.

Which investor from the first Dragons' Den panel in 2005 outlasted the four other original dragons?

Peter Jones was the only original dragon left once the twelfth series ended, and he exported the pitching idea too, selling ABC the show that became American Inventor.

Which Dragons' Den investor began his business career with a £450 ice cream van in Stockton-on-Tees?

Duncan Bannatyne sold the ice cream business for £28,000 and moved into nursing homes, selling that company for £26 million before he built his chain of health clubs.

Which hairbrush brand, rejected on Dragons' Den in 2007, later sold a majority stake for about £70 million?

Tangle Teezer had its revenge the night the episode aired: so many viewers rushed to buy the brush that the company's website crashed under 1,500 orders.

In the opening pitch on Dragons' Den, what do entrepreneurs offer the investors in return for the money they want?

Equity, a share in the company itself, is the main thing haggled over: dragons often push for a far bigger stake than the entrepreneur first puts on the table.

Which online greeting card retailer did Nick Jenkins found before his two series as a Dragons' Den investor?

Moonpig took its name from the nickname he was given at school, and he sold the company in 2011 for an estimated £120 million.

Which stationery chain did Dragons' Den investor Theo Paphitis buy from its administrators and turn around?

Ryman had earlier let him sell mobile phones from concessions inside its shops, and he later added Robert Dyas and the lingerie retailer Boux Avenue to his stable.

Original Dragons' Den investor Simon Woodroffe founded which restaurant chain?

YO! Sushi opened in 1997 with self-heating plates and call buttons at the table, and its founder went on to launch the hotel brand Yotel.

Which Dragons' Den investor ran a family holiday park business before joining the panel alongside Richard Farleigh?

Deborah Meaden led a management buyout of Weststar Holidays in 1999, having first joined the family firm to run its amusement arcades.

Which shirtmaker did Dragons' Den investor Touker Suleyman buy for just £1 when it was deep in debt?

Hawes & Curtis owed £500,000 and was about to go into administration; under him its turnover climbed from £600,000 to £30 million by 2014.

Which former England right-back turned television pundit became a guest investor on Dragons' Den in 2024?

Gary Neville moved into business after football, joining former teammates to buy the non-league club Salford City in 2014.

Which fitness coach known as The Body Coach was a guest investor on Dragons' Den in its 22nd series?

Joe Wicks built his following by posting 15-second recipe videos, having earlier been the first player knocked out of the Channel 4 game show The Bank Job.

Which experience gift firm founded by Rachel Elnaugh collapsed shortly before her second series of Dragons' Den?

Red Letter Days went into administration in 2005 and its remaining assets were bought by two of her fellow dragons; she blamed a chief executive she had appointed.

What was Kelly Hoppen's profession when she became an investor on Dragons' Den in 2013?

An interior designer born in South Africa, she spent two series in the den and left because she could not fit the filming schedule around her other work.

Dragons' Den investor Tej Lalvani became chief executive of which supplements company founded by his father?

Vitabiotics, billed as Britain's largest vitamin company, gave him his first job in its warehouse before he succeeded his father as chief executive.

Which star of The Apprentice walked into Dragons' Den seeking investment in a 2011 charity sketch?

Alan Sugar turned up for a Children in Need special that brought the two business shows together, with the boardroom boss cast for once as the one asking for money.

Which channel showed Dragons' Den from its launch in 2005 until the show switched channels in 2021?

BBC Two launched the show on 4 January 2005 and kept it until 2021, when it was promoted to the corporation's main channel.

The opening titles of Dragons' Den were filmed among old cotton mills in which northern English city?

Manchester earned the nickname Cottonopolis during the Industrial Revolution, and the mills of its Ancoats district were filmed for the titles to match the show's warehouse look.

Which film studio, long the base of the James Bond films, housed Dragons' Den before the show moved to Salford?

Pinewood had two weeks to take the show in after building work forced a move, and the new set had the den's staircase sunk into the tank beneath a film stage.

Which takeaway ordering site won a £100,000 offer on Dragons' Den in 2007 and was later merged into Just Eat?

Hungryhouse never took the dragons' money: the deal collapsed after filming, and other business angels put in £150,000 instead.

PerfectTed, a Dragons' Den deal later valued at about £140 million, sells energy drinks made with which ingredient?

Matcha proved a shrewd bet: the founders accepted two offers in the den, completed only one after filming, and that dragon later put in a further £1 million.

What off-screen checking process must a Dragons' Den deal survive before any contract is signed?

Due diligence is where many handshakes die: a 2015 newspaper study of the first eleven series claimed that 76 of the 143 deals agreed on screen never went through.

What happens on Dragons' Den if an entrepreneur's offers add up to less than the sum requested?

They leave with nothing, however close they came, which is why several dragons will sometimes club together to make up the full amount between them.

Which Dragons' Den investor, born Nazim Khan in Lahore, made his fortune with the recruitment firm Alexander Mann?

James Caan left home at 16 and took his first tiny office on Pall Mall purely for the prestige of the address; he joined the den for its fifth series in 2007.

What kind of product was Destination London, which Rachel Lowe pitched in the first series of Dragons' Den?

A board game, it left the den without investment, yet Hamleys launched it for Christmas 2004 and it outsold Monopoly there that year.

What were the wealthy investors called in the original 2001 show that Dragons' Den was adapted from?

Tigers was a pun: the original title played on the wartime nickname of a general who was known as the Tiger of Malaya.

Which animals take the dragons' place in the title of Germany's version of Dragons' Den, shown on VOX?

Lions lend the German show its name, which translates as The Lions' Den; elsewhere most early versions simply borrowed the British title.

Which country's version of the Dragons' Den format was the first to call its investors sharks, in 2006?

Israel got there three years before America's Shark Tank, with a show whose Hebrew title means The Sharks.

Which Hollywood studio's television arm distributes the Dragons' Den format to broadcasters around the world?

Sony Pictures Television sells the format worldwide, and local versions have been made in more than 40 countries.

Which broadcaster has aired Canada's own Dragons' Den, hosted by Dianne Buckner, since October 2006?

CBC's show also has a Quebec-only spin-off in French, whose title translates as 'in the Dragon's eye'.

Which Canadian Dragons' Den investor styles himself Mr. Wonderful and became a fixture of Shark Tank?

Kevin O'Leary once marketed cat food for Nabisco, then built the software firm The Learning Company, which Mattel bought in 1999.

Which investor has sat on the Canadian, American and Australian versions of the Dragons' Den format?

Robert Herjavec arrived in Canada aged eight with a family that had just $20, and later sold his internet security firm BRAK Systems for $30.2 million.

Former Mountie Jim Treliving, a Dragons' Den investor in Canada for 15 seasons, co-owns which restaurant chain?

Boston Pizza began for him as a single franchise bought in 1968, two years after he left the police, and in 1983 he and a partner bought the whole chain.

Peter Casey, Seán Gallagher and Gavin Duffy of the Irish Dragons' Den all ran for which office in 2018?

President was the prize, and the three dragons finished second, third and last behind Michael D. Higgins, who had also beaten one of them in 2011.

Which Marvel film star was a guest investor on the nineteenth season of Canada's Dragons' Den?

Simu Liu, who played Marvel's Shang-Chi in 2021, sat on the panel as a general partner at Markham Valley Ventures.

Which marketing boss joined Canada's Dragons' Den in its second season, left in 2015 and returned two years later?

Arlene Dickinson was born in South Africa and owns the marketing company Venture; she had won awards including Calgary Business Owner of the Year before she was cast.

Lane Merrifield, a Dragons' Den investor in Canada, co-founded which children's virtual world bought by Disney in 2007?

Club Penguin fetched $350 million, and its co-founder spent five years as a Disney executive before he took a seat in the den for seasons 13 to 15.

Which BBC contest did Dragons' Den investor Sara Davies enter in 2021, going out in its eighth week?

Strictly Come Dancing paired her with Aljaž Škorjanec and kept her until week eight; she had made her money from Crafter's Companion, the firm she started while a student at the University of York.

Hilary Devey, a Dragons' Den investor in 2011 and 2012, made her fortune founding which freight network?

Pall-Ex launched in 1996 and made her rich, decades after she had watched bailiffs clear the family home at the age of seven when her father went bankrupt.

Jenny Campbell, a Dragons' Den investor from 2017 to 2019, bought a business from RBS in 2010 that ran what?

Cash machines made her name: after 32 years working for the bank she bought the operation, renamed it YourCash and sold it in 2016.

Sarah Willingham, a Dragons' Den investor from 2015, built up which Indian restaurant chain after buying it in 2004?

Bombay Bicycle Club grew into Britain's largest Indian restaurant chain under her, and she went on to be an inspector on Raymond Blanc's BBC series The Restaurant.

Which co-founder of the denim brand Good American was a guest investor on Dragons' Den in 2024?

Emma Grede pitched the denim idea to Kris Jenner at Paris Fashion Week, and the brand sold a million dollars of jeans on its first day.

Dragons' Den investor Theo Paphitis spent almost eight years as chairman of which London football club?

Millwall were in administration when he took over in 1997, and he stepped down the year after the club reached the 2004 FA Cup final.

Which Premier League club chairman was lined up as a Dragons' Den investor for series 15 but withdrew for lack of time?

Steve Parish, the chairman of Crystal Palace, had been named as a replacement but found he could not spare the time, so the seat went to a vitamins boss instead.

What kind of building in Stoke Newington housed the first series of Dragons' Den in 2005?

A furniture depository gave the show its bare look, but building work next door forced a move after one series to a disused warehouse fitted with a purpose-built set.