“Convince Me and I’ll Give You £2.5m” | Dragons’ Den

[Music] good morning my name's steven voller i'm the founder of be automobiles we are an electric car company and i'm here today to raise two and a half million pounds for 30 of the equity now if i can persuade you to invest today i can leverage an additional seven and a half million from government funding which is there to support the car industry for the last seven years i've been running a battery and fuel cell company now i listed that company on the stock exchange in 2005 and since then i've been thinking hard about how we can apply the battery technology to make an appealing family car so we can make an appealing family car and i've assembled an awesome team from bmw from mclaren and from lamborghini with design expertise to make a car like this possible in the past i've raised over 40 million pounds for companies and i've invested a half a million pounds of my own money in this business so far to make it possible and i passionately believe that if we produce an appealing car then we can sell it as a mass market vehicle in the first instance the car will perform like a conventional car it'll accelerate very well we have a twin dual motor design which is unique to us we file patents which cover 32 different aspects of safety within the vehicle now i believe with your help the time is right to create a new green car brand and make the uk car industry great once again thank you very much [Music] asking the dragons for two and a half million pounds clearly affected stephen voller it's by far the largest amount asked for in the den in return he's offering 30 equity in his new electric car business b automobiles peter jones wants to know more about steven's credentials i'm peter hi before i get onto the actual car i just want to talk about your background a little bit so what have you done to give your pitch credence about your personal level of success prior to forming the battery and fuel cell company um i worked for netscape in the internet business i was the uk managing director and then raised 26 million of private equity for an internet services company and the result that company's still trading and doing very well can you quantify that well um it's now profitable um i believe that it makes around four million pounds a year you've said a few good things about raising 40 million pounds for companies out of that 40 million that you've raised how much and what's been the return on that investment to the people that stumped the cash um considerable um looking for a number really have you got there's been over several different businesses but most of the people that have been involved have made more than four or five times their money so give me the last one you've got a listing in 2005 of your company yes how much have you made from that um i made about half a million pounds which i've reinvested into the bee company it's a solid start for stephen he's revealed a convincing track record and james khan is eager to find out more stephen i i'd love to invest in a car that's going to make a difference that's going to improve the planet um and i do think the product that's available on the market at the moment isn't very attractive i mean they're very poorly specced and you know to me on the surface it sounds like a very attractive proposition if you can convince me that this is gonna work i'll give you the two and a half million well thank you so what price are you able to produce the car um we're able to produce the car for about seven thousand pounds at a quantity of a thousand a month so we would plan to sell it at the price of about 12 000 pounds okay and who's your main competitor in that range in the electric market well there really aren't many electric cars on the market today and this is this from a sizing point of view this would be like the galaxy will it um it'd be of like a mercedes a-class or an audi a2 okay and what is it that you can do that they can't do that they're spending ten times the amount of money and according to you getting it wrong what we're doing is designing a car from the ground up that takes advantage of all the electrical technology which is now available for these new types of cars and this really is a new way of making cars i've got an experienced team that can do it in a no-nonsense way impressive stuff from the experienced entrepreneur but theo perfettis thinks he's discovered a fundamental flaw the car industry is a mega turmoil the sort of money that you're asking for here doesn't even cover the audit fees of some of those companies they're among the legal fees they spend they're all working like nuts at the moment to develop new alternative energy vehicles and you're going to do it all for two and a half plus you said seven and a half million from government 10 million pounds would have you where we would have the car fully designed and tested and through its eu certification and all the setup ready to put it into production in what period of time two years in two years and your competitors in the meantime who are already got all sorts of alternative energy vehicles out there at the moment are they going to stand still for two years waiting for you no they're not theo but we believe that we can compete with them because of our unique design and unique approach tell us about your unique design and unique approach we have a number of new and innovative design features about the car one of them is sound generators at the front of the back outside of schools for example already because it's not designed already sound generators already exist next what else is unique uh we have a permanent 3g connection in the car a permanent 3g connection so that you can your mobile phone in the car in effect yes okay try again what's unique the car will email you and text you when it needs servicing so the car will accommodate give me some technological innovation not gizmos that already exist what is your usp don't roll out all the things that everybody else has got watch your usp he hasn't got one exchangeable battery packs it's not new every car company i've seen discussing electric cars has talked about exchangeable battery packs you've got nothing have you we have other than a dream we've got um a lot of technology aspects stephen you're going to come to market in two years time with a car that's behind the times well you won't be coming to market because you haven't got enough money you've got no technological uniqueness about it and i'm being harsh with you because i want you to take away from this a reality check you've got nothing here other than an ambition and dream whilst admirable foolish amounts thank you unable to satisfy an incredulous theopha fetus stephen loses his first dragon debra medan is now ready to have her say the only thing that stands between you and you losing a fortune and losing everybody else's fortune is my hope that you don't get the funds to do this and very rarely do i say to somebody i hope you don't get the funds to do this but i really hope you don't because you are going to waste your money your funds and everybody else's funds trying to get into a marketplace where there are many many other people much better place than you to take advantage of that marketplace and even here today you're failing to explain why you're in a better position for that reason i'm out thank you stephen i i don't get it it's like you know you come along and you seem quite an intelligent man and you stand there and you pitch for 200 million to come up with a car which is theo says well about a day by time it comes out just i think it's crazy i'm out okay three dragons out and steven's pitch is unraveling but will and initially interested james khan throw him a two and a half million pound lifeline how much are you setting aside in your business plan to market the product so the consumer knows its existence well uh we're we're setting aside around a half a million pounds in the first instance to do that which i know is going to say is no drop in the ocean i would say it's ridiculous i mean if you compare that to any other car launch that i've ever come across you know the average number is going to be 20 million plus isn't it yes yeah there's only four foot between you and i and two and a half million you know don't lose it i'm itching to give it to you i do believe that we can use um low-cost marketing techniques localized marketing uh we can use viral marketing techniques to get themselves across all due respect they are tried and tested thought processes any company that's got half a brain that has a product to sell understands what you're describing so i won't be investing some out thank you james khan is the fourth dragon to walk away from the deal and peter jones is now ready to declare his position yeah anybody that has got to where you have got to in life you know you've got to have some sort of credence behind what you're saying but i think you're losing sight of reality now 10 million pounds to create the next great viable electric car that the world is going to want to buy i can't understand it and i'm not going to invest in you and i'm out thank you it was a lesson in tough love from the dragons stephen walks away without the cash he needs [Music] well stephen 2.5 million is a very large amount of money did you think beforehand this is a very big ask to bring to the dragons yes we did but i'm disappointed and i really feel that i've let the team down well in the team when you're talking about what you've got does this question this repeated question about the uniqueness of what you've got come up we believe that we do have a unique approach we won't give up we will carry on and we believe we can make a success of this you're gonna have to show the dragons a thing or two well we hope we can yes all right good luck thank you very much thank you [Music] you

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Rating: 4.8705282 out of 5

Keywords: dragon's den, dragon's den uk, deborah meaden, peter jones, touker suleyman, business pitching, entrepreneur, reality tv, shark tank, unique design, exchangeable battery packs, electric car conversion, bbc iplayer, british tv, british tv shows, watch uk tv online, watch british tv online, dragons, den, new, series, worst, pitches, funniest, moments, most, shocking, ideas, products, dragons den worst pitches, dragons den funny, dragons den series 17, new dragons den, bbc dragons den

Id: hSpE8qlGozc

Length: 12min 25sec (745 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 31 2020