Richard Farleigh: The Business Angel Who Sat for Two Series
Richard Farleigh
Richard Farleigh was born in Australia in 1960 and made his career in finance, working as a bond trader and then running money for a private investment operation, retiring from full time markets work while still in his thirties.
He moved to Monaco and became one of Britain's better known business angels, taking small stakes in a large number of early stage companies rather than running an operating business of his own.
The angel's approach
His investing was spread wide rather than concentrated, the classic angel model in which most positions fail and a small number carry the whole portfolio.
He set out his thinking in a book, Taming the Lion, and has written and spoken regularly about how private investors should weigh risk.
Series three and four
Farleigh joined Dragons' Den for its third series in 2006, arriving in the same run as Deborah Meaden, and appeared for two series before James Caan took the seat in 2007.
He remains one of the few British dragons whose money came from markets rather than from building a consumer brand, and his questions ran to valuation and dilution rather than to the product on the table.
Products Richard Farleigh backed in the Den
Foot Deodoriser
described as sanitiser that kills bacteria within shoes
