Dragons Den Deals That Cost More Equity Than Asked
The equity an entrepreneur offers at the start of a pitch is rarely the equity they end up giving away. Once the Dragons start negotiating, the number tends to move, and in the pitches below it moved a long way from where it started.
This list is limited to the deals in our records where both the original ask and the final agreed equity are confirmed, so the size of the shift can actually be measured rather than estimated.
Liquiproof, +45 percentage points
Caner Veli asked for 5% of Liquiproof in exchange for £100,000, and ended up giving Touker Suleyman 50%, a 45 point jump from the original offer.
It is the single largest gap between an ask and a final deal in our entire dataset.
Beach Powder, +39 percentage points
Stephanie Kelsey offered 10% of Beach Powder for £60,000, and the final deal settled at 49%, split between Sara Davies and Touker Suleyman.
It is the second largest jump between an original ask and a final deal that we could confirm anywhere in our records.
Magic Whiteboard, +25 percentage points
Neil and Laura Westwood offered 15% of Magic Whiteboard for £100,000, and ended up giving away 40%, split between Theo Paphitis and Deborah Meaden.
Nearly tripling the equity offered for the exact same amount of cash makes this one of the more expensive renegotiations on this list.
PÄRLA Toothpaste Tabs, +21 percentage points
Dr Simon Chard and Dr Ronah Escander offered 9% of the business for £70,000, and the final deal with Tej Lalvani and Deborah Meaden settled at 30%.
It is more than triple the original equity offer for the same investment amount.
Reggae Reggae Sauce and Glassbusters, +20 percentage points
Levi Roots offered 20% of Reggae Reggae Sauce for £50,000, and the deal with Peter Jones and Richard Farleigh doubled that to 40%. Pete Ancketill's Glassbusters saw the same 20 point jump, from 10% to 30%, for £200,000.
Both are examples of the equity doubling from the original ask, one of the more common patterns we found across the confirmed deals in our data.
Igloo, +14.5 percentage points
Anthony Coates-Smith and Alistair Turner offered 8% of Igloo for £160,000, and the deal with Duncan Bannatyne and Richard Farleigh settled at 22.5%.
It is nearly triple the original offer, though smaller in absolute terms than the jumps seen on Liquiproof or Beach Powder.
The ones who held the line, Snaffling Pig, Kerbo Charge, Billy+Margot and Skinny Tan
Not every entrepreneur saw their equity move. The Snaffling Pig, Kerbo Charge, Billy+Margot and Skinny Tan all secured deals at exactly the equity percentage they originally asked for, with no renegotiation at all.
Set against the rest of this list, holding the line on the original offer looks like the exception rather than the rule once a Dragon is seriously interested.