Dragons’ Den
‘This year, one dragon didn’ t speak to me for an hour after I won a pitch !’
Fans can’t get enough of Dragons’ Den, back for its 18th series in its new home on BBC One. As ever, a new set of eager entrepreneurs are hoping to strike a life-changing deal with the toughest titans of industry; Peter Jones, Deborah Meaden, Touker Suleyman, Tej Lalvani and Sara Davies. Here, longest-serving Dragon, Peter Jones, 55, tells us why he loves the show so much…
You’re the den’s longestserving Dragon, do you still enjoy it? I absolutely love it – it’s like a day job for me, I just sit in that chair waiting for the next Levi Roots to come along, it’s quite exciting. I’m happy to invest in anything as long as there’s a great person pitching. There’s a guy I invested in this year who is incredibly good, and two or three investments I think are going to be exceptional.
There’s a record level of investment this year – what made the pitches so attractive this series?
I think it has a lot to do with the pandemic, which has driven a lot of people to look for different sources of investment, particularly digital businesses. The quality of the pitches has really gone up a level this year, it really hit me how good they were.
There’s a lot of competition among the Dragons this year – did it get tense?
Yes, it did, there were a couple of Dragons out for my lunch this time, which was a bit cheeky! The quality of the businesses really heightened the level of competitiveness in the den, there were so many pitches where all of the Dragons were clearly interested, so I would sit quietly in my chair thinking, ‘Hmm, what strategy are you going to employ now, Peter? What’s Deborah going to do? Which way will Sara go?’ Tej started to look
more closely at digital businesses, which is my area, so I realised I would have to up my game to win those deals.
How do the Dragons get on, behind the scenes?
When we’re inside the den there’s no illusion, you’re a Dragon who is there to win, it’s as simple as that. This year, one Dragon didn’t speak to me for an hour after I won a pitch! But we do get on really well off-camera, I like the good banter so I’ll keep mentioning the names of investments I’ve won in the green room, to keep the excitement going…
Dragons’ Den
continues Thursday, at 8PM on BBC One.