Millions of TV viewers tuned in last night as the 22nd series of Dragons’ Den returned to our screens.
Fitness fanatic Joe Wicks joined Peter Jones, Deborah Meaden, Sara Davies, Steven Bartlett and Touker Suleyman as a guest Dragon on the show.
One person who knows better than most what it’s like to be interrogated in the den is successful entrepreneur Gavin Wheeldon.
Today he’s the CEO of Wi-Fi and location analytics platform Purple, which he founded in 2012 and received a £10.5m investment from BGF in 2023.
However, when he appeared on Dragons’ Den in 2007, he was offering 4 per cent of his previous business Applied Language Solutions (ALS) for a mouthwatering £250,000 investment.
Recalling his memories of the day, Wheeldon said: “Walking up what seemed like a hundred set of stairs when doing my pitch feeling like I’d swallowed a desert.
“That said, once I found some saliva I enjoyed the 90 minutes up there and the sparring.
“I never expected to get investment, my ask was the highest amount ever at that point for the lowest percentage offer again at that point.
“I had a small hope we might find a valuation that would work but figured either way it would be good for the business and it was.
Gavin Wheeldon pitching to the Dragons in 2007
“10 mins of advertising time for many millions of people and a chapter in the book.”
The deal offered valued Wheeldon’s business at £6m – raising eyebrows among the Dragons.
Dragon Theo Paphitis said: “We’re all impressed by the turnover you’ve created. I’m not quite as impressed by the valuation. I’m going to give you the opportunity of how you arrived at that valuation.”
Viewers watched as a confident Wheeldon stood up the grilling by explaining how the figure was based on a profit to earnings ratio of 15.
Although Wheeldon didn’t secure investment from the Dragons he went on to sell ALS to Capita in 2011 in a deal worth up to £67.5m.
The businessman had this advice for anyone appearing on the BBC show. “Know your numbers inside out and backwards,” he said. “Know your market inside out and backwards and know your competitors inside out and backwards. You will get grilled intensely.
“I think Dragons’ Den is good for business, hopefully it encourages people to be entrepreneurs and it raises the profile of being in business.
“That and for the ones who go on they get great publicity, hopefully get some good backers who can open some doors for them. If nothing else (it) forces them to really think about their business before they do arrive in the den.”
The latest episode of Dragons’ Den included cousins from Lancashire, who were looking for investment for a range of dissolvable vitamins.