History will be made when the latest series of Dragons’ Den returns to our screens next week.
Guest Dragons Susie Ma and Jenna Meek will join regular faces Peter Jones, Deborah Meaden and Steven Bartlett when the popular show returns to BBC One on August 20.
It will be the first time in the 21-year history of the show that female Dragons will outnumber their male counterparts.
This series will also be noticeable because it will be the last one featuring Touker Suleyman, who announced earlier this year that he would be leaving the show after more than a decade in the Den.
Meek, who is the co-founder of REFY, Tropic Skincare founder Ma, former footballer Gary Neville and Tinie Tempah are all appearing in series 23 as guest Dragons.
One of the entrepreneurs pitching for investment on August 20 is Louise Truman, founder of Gen Z tech-enabled travel business PLOTPACKERS.
Louise Truman, founder of PLOTPACKERS
Writing on LinkedIn ahead of her appearance, she said: “I’ve been keeping a secret for so long that writing this still feels completely surreal.
“Last February, I was in Costa Rica when I got a call from the BBC asking if I wanted to come on a certain show.
“And a few weeks later, I was walking into Dragons’ Den to pitch the business I’d spent the last year building.
“And I think the scale of that moment only really makes sense when I think about how I got there.
“At 21, I was sexually assaulted while travelling and became scared to travel alone again.
“At 23, I started PLOTPACKERS, partly because I wanted to build the kind of travel experience that would have made that version of me feel safer, without having to give up the adventure.
“Then at 25, I walked into Dragons’ Den to pitch that business.
“And there was another part of walking into that room that made the whole thing feel even bigger.
“For the first time in the show’s 21-year history, the episode had a majority female panel of Dragons. Three of the five people sitting opposite me were women.
“I don’t want to overstate it, but there was something really powerful about seeing that. As a female founder, I know how rare it still is to walk into rooms like this and see women on the other side of the table too.
“To walk into probably the biggest pitch of my life and see three incredibly successful women looking back at me made an already huge moment feel even more significant.”
“I genuinely cannot wait for you all to finally see what happened in that room.”
She’ll be joined by Sanjay Aggarwal, the self-styled ‘chief spice officer’ at Spice Kitchen, and his mum Shashi.
He wrote: “Standing beside her as those lift doors opened is something I’ll never forget. I was SOOO flipping nervous while she was calm as you like.
“You all know that Spice Kitchen began with mum, her phenomenal spice cookery and conversations around our family kitchen table, so stepping into the Den together felt like a very special moment in our story.
Sanjay Aggarwal and his mum Shashi, of Spice Kitchen
“It dawned on us a few weeks ago that at 76, mum is believed to be one of the oldest entrepreneurs ever to pitch on the programme. I couldn’t be prouder of her, or more grateful that we got to take this particular leap of faith together.
“To all the founders and small-business owners in my network: you’ll know just how much courage it takes to put yourself and your business out there.”
John Gray and Sean Robinson, founders of North East-based traditional sweet shop Mr Swainstons, will be seen coming face-to-face with the Dragons next week in search of investment.
You can find out how they got on at 8pm on August 20 on BBC One, or catch up afterwards on BBC iPlayer.