BBC Dragons’ Den: Five Northern companies that failed to fire up the Dragons but did rather well anyway

No shortage of success stories have walked out of the Manchester (and occasionally London and Scotland) studios of Dragons’ Den with a pocket full of cash, from household names like Levi Roots Reggae Reggae Sauce, whose founder was valued at £30m on 2023’s Sunday Times Rich list, to the less spicy Magic Whiteboard, which netted Deborah Meaden and Theo Paphitis a cool £700k profit when the founders bought back their shares in 2014.

It’s not always plain sailing, however. Ahead of Thursday’s second episode of the new, 22nd, series, which has seen a host of new Dragons join the den, we take a look at some of the Northern firms that got away from Meaden, Paphitis, Jones, Bartlett, Neville et al:

Brewdog

Perhaps the most famous misstep in Dragon’s Den’s two decade history, Scottish craft beer enthusiasts James Watt and Martin Dickie pitched their fledgling beer brand to the Dragons back in 2009. They were seeking £100,000 in return for 20% of the company, but were turned down.

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The rest, like Watt himself in the Brewdog executive boardroom, is history. Brewdog was valued at around $2bn in 2024, and as well as its vast range of beers and lagers the company also operates over 100 bars around the world (three within stumbling distance of my flat) as well as breweries, microbreweries and hotels.

Watt, who stepped down as CEO last year after some testing headlines, took to Twitter in 2020 to throw more light on the Dragons’ faux pas: “Based on our latest BrewDog valuation, that investment would now be worth almost £360m meaning the Dragons missed out on by far the best deal in Den history. We got over the rejection eventually. But it took a while.”

Tangle Teezer

In 2007, Grimsby inventor Shaun Pulfrey pitched the Tangle Teezer, a new hairbrush that would “brush tangled hair into a smooth glide,” to the Dragons. Pulfrey offered 15% of Tangle Teezer for £80,000 but was rejected. Peter Jones labeled the brushes “hair-brained,” James Caan said they were a “waste of time,” and Duncan Bannatyne said he wanted to ‘pull [his] hair out.’ However, when the episode was aired, the Tangle Teezer website crashed due to public demand.

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In 2008, Boots began stocking the brushes, and by 2009 sales had reached £500,000. Tangle Teezer was subsequently acquired by BIC in December 2024 for £165m, and the product is currently sold in over 100 countries worldwide.

Hole in Wand

When chief enchantment officer Ben Fry and director of wizardry Phil Pinder went up before the Dragons in March 2023 they were already operating a successful wizard-themed mini golf attraction in York called Hole in Wand. They had plans to open a second venue in Blackpool, and were looking for a £200,000 cash injection to help them accelerate their expansion with a third Hole in Wand in Edinburgh too. Their ultimate goal was to become the biggest mini golf chain in the UK., and they were prepared to part with 10 percent of the business.

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Steven Bartlett said it was “not a particularly ambitious business” while Sara Davies commented she had “zero confidence” in the pair’s ability to manage money as the Dragons dropped out one by one. Peter Jones threw the partners a lifeline, offering them the £200,000 but demanding a one third share of the business. It was the largest offer made by a single dragon in the programme’s 18-year history.

When the pair declined to part with so much equity, the most famous Dragon of them all even reduced his demand to 15 percent, but they stood firm and left the den with no deal.

It’s a little early to say the pair have unequivocally hit the Dragons’ doubts into the rough, but the Blackpool and Edinburgh locations are up and running without the Dragons’ help, and the founders seem happy enough to note on the attraction’s website that they “will always be grateful for the business lessons they learnt that fateful day on Dragons’ Den. And from now on we will always be… As seen on Dragons’ Den”

This is Unfolded

Scottish entrepreneur Cally Russell is becoming something of a Dragons’ Den veteran having now made not one, but two appearances on the show.

His first pitch, in 2015, was for Mallzee, an at-the-time groundbreaking app that allowed retailers to use data to decide what stock they should buy. On that occasion, Russell and Peter Jones couldn’t agree on his valuation of the business and the founder walked away and made a success of the business regardless, only for it to collapse along with much of the retail sector during Covid.

Undeterred, Russell returned in 2021 with a new idea, a clothing company that manufactures garments to order, thereby reducing waste – around 30 percent of clothes manufactured conventionally are never sold.

The business is also heavily invested in welfare initiatives for the workers at the manufacturing site in India and for the surrounding community. Russell was looking for £75,000 for a two percent share of the business.

This time three Dragons bit, Jones, Deborah Meaden and Touker Suleyman. Once again, however, Russell refused to accept their valuation and walked away. He probably made the right choice: “Our belief in our valuation has been proven by the fact that since filming we’ve gone on to raise a further £600k from leading early stage investors in the UK and US,” he wrote on the Unfolded website.

Wine Innovations

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While Wine Innovations may not be a household name in itself, you may have come across Intrepid Fox, Marks and Spencers Le Froglet or Sainsbury’s Cavatina single-serve pre-filled wine glasses.

These gamechangers in the drinking-on-the-go sphere came courtesy of Staffordshire wine packaging connoisseur James Nash, who took his idea to the Dragons in 2009. At that point, he’d trialled his invention at just two pop concerts and sold just over 20,000 units.

The Dragons, however, were concerned about how watertight Nash’s patent was, and he went home empty handed.

No worries, though. Nash’s handy cups went on to become an M&S best seller and a staple at train stations and picnics, and Ball Capital Investments took Wine Innovations off Nash’s hands for an undisclosed sum in 2014.


Bonus American entry:

Door Bot


One that got away to rival Brewdog, from the other side of the pond’s version of Dragon’s Den Shark Tank.

You probably haven’t heard of Door Bot. You probably have heard of Ring Doorbells, however, which is what Door Bot rebranded to after Richard Branson invested $28m in 2013.

Shortly before the Virgin boss’ intervention, inventor Jamie Siminoff had taken his gadget on Shark Tank, seeking $700,000 for a 10% share. Most of the sharks were unconvinced, thinking that a doorbell with a camera that connects to your smart phone was something straight out of a sci-fi film. Kevin O’Leary offered the money, but only as a loan, with hefty conditions attached, and Siminoff walked away.

About a year later, Amazon acquired Ring for $1bn, and Siminoff has since returned to the Tank as a guest Shark.

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