3 of the Biggest Investments in Den History | Dragons' Den

[Music] hello my name is ashley and i'm looking for 150 000 pounds for 25 in my company kuruma innovations based in singapore we have affordable durable and easy to use tablets for kids and parents our first product is playbase go designed to be as thin and as light as possible our second product is playbase plus it's the world's first antibacterial tablet using our patented technology it kills 99.99 of all germs on the screen and on the silicon covers i've been speaking to retailers and distributors in singapore malaysia the uk and the states and we just achieved our first retail deal with the largest electronics retailer in south east asia i hope that you love playbase as much as i do and thank you very much for taking the time to listen to me thank you a high-tech opportunity for the dragons product designer ashley syed believes he can introduce his new lines to more customers if only he can get a 150 000 cash injection 25 equity is on offer peter jones knows this sector well ashley yes um who's the retailer that's taking this in singapore his courts okay we've had a lot of people that are really interested in the product we we went to ces in january this year and what's the total cost of this unit 179 and what does it cost you delivered landed here it cost us about 60 pounds what do you believe is unique about this product okay so there are there are a few unique things i mean as you know a lot of kids are using their parents ipads and things like that and what i noticed was that they were dropping them because they're not designed for kids so really what we've done is we've developed a much more durable product and the fact that we've got our antibacterial protection as well is that on this unit correct we basically developed a patent to put it into a film which goes on to the screen okay [Music] robust responses from the singapore-based businessman so what of the entrepreneur himself deborah meaden wants to know what's your background ashley okay so i did a degree in product design engineering and uh worked for motorola developed the thinnest mobile phone in the world um tomtom where i was head of design and after that i had phillips chasing me for for quite a while and they offered me a great opportunity uh managing teams of over 100 people and then i've always wanted to obviously set up my own business that's when i set up in singapore two years ago okay and how much money does it cost you to get where you are at the moment it cost me around about 50 000 pounds so far and the money has come from just my own cash okay can we just talk a little bit about the patterns yeah the antibacterial which bit is actually the patentable bit okay so what we've done is we've taken a silver ion technology which is basically an agent and the ip's based around how we apply that to a film and then how we apply that film onto an electrical device how long has it taken you to get it and how much have you spent it's pending when did you put the application in uh about two months ago very early days that's not quite having a patent is it yeah it's pending it's patent pending so i mean obviously we did our checks and we know what's in the market right now and the process of putting on the agent onto the film is very very difficult the first sign of uncertainty from ashley it looks like alarm bells are ringing for retail expert theo pathetis okay where do i start this market is hugely competitive yep i bought one of these not this one 100 quid yeah i mean can i so so price wise you're way above what the market is for generic tablets of this size the thing is look we're not going to compete on price because we'll always lose that war so what we're trying to do is understand the end user and listen to them and feedback as much as we can into the product so the actual tablet itself you say that's all your design is it yeah we we basically did the design for the covers and the external but the reference design for the pcb uh it comes from our contract manufacturer so we basically put a skin around it yeah yeah so the inners basically are the same as you would get in any of the other tablets yeah but what you gotta understand is they're all running android and android has a set buttons as you know right thank you yes correct yeah um actually my 150 grand isn't going to go very far in developing these products in what is an incredibly fast moving market yeah but look at steve jobs and wozniak right they developed the apple one apple ii in their garage when their hp were giants don't think if it wasn't for microsoft duffle wouldn't exist no that's true yeah i mean it changes so quickly with so many dominant players unfortunately whilst i like the subject matter i'd probably enjoy working with you 150 000 to get into that market it's not going to do it it's too competitive even with that with my own personal distribution channel that i've got so i'm afraid i'm out okay thanks [Music] despite a confident riposte ashley loses his first dragon and it doesn't look like duncan bannertine is going to offer him any hope either um actually i have to say i think he presented very well um but technology gadgets is not my strength so there's nothing i can really add so for that reason for that reason only i'm going to say that i'm out okay ashley you're great you're really good you've got great track record and the bit that could have interested me was the antibacterial because i can see that that if you had a patent on that that could be very valuable very bad that's what we believe but the trouble is i don't think you're going to convince me that that will go through when you've only put your patent application in two months ago and if you asked me to put my money on it i would probably say i don't think you get that so i won't be investing you actually i might ashley hi i can't put it any more succinctly than what deborah has and again i think we all think that you're very credible and obviously very knowledgeable but unfortunately i won't be investing today so i know ashley puts on a brave face as three dragons declare themselves out in quick succession now only peter jones can save him from complete failure in the den that leaves me ashley you're a product guy but i think it's poorly designed but i just turned that and it just ripped i don't think i mean i'm not pulling it hard but that's gone yeah we have actually addressed that by uh increasing the thickness of the material is this a prototype um well this is a pre-production unit okay yeah look i know this is not absolutely perfect okay and you know what what we've done is with the development of our second generation we've got some really cool ip that that i've developed what's the ip you've developed we've figured out a way to do wireless charging and what we've done is figured out how to build it inside the product we'll be able to charge two or three play bases at the same time you know i understand all the things that you said and everyone thinks i'm crazy obviously to go into a market that's so competitive but being based in singapore we can actually at least be quicker than everybody else in developing the technology and bringing it out so you've come over here all the way from singapore to pitch to us yeah two days ago well um actually i think you're really employable um and if you were pitching for a job i'd offer you a job it's an interesting one how would you feel if i put an offer together on the basis of employing you directly so ultimately you get what you wanted coming into the den yeah okay i'll be interested in doing that in a deal yeah i'll be interested okay so i'm going to make you an offer okay i'm going to offer you 150 000 pounds which would be paid to you and you go and prove that this concept works right and if within that 12 months we've got a product that can go to market and that can make money i would fold your concept into one of my existing businesses and you would end up with if successful 25 percent ownership of that division right but if after 12 months this division has not made money um i want the right to be able to have a conversation with you and we both go a lonely ways okay we'll do a deal well done thanks well done it's an extraordinary conclusion how do you feel tired ashley's paying a high price but he's got the money he needs and the full support of peter jones technology empire good deal though very clever player yeah yeah thank you [Music] so hi i'm chris bernardo and i'm richard blaxley and together we're the wand company and we're here today to ask for two hundred thousand pounds investment for a ten percent stake in our company arthur c clarke is famous for having said any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic and the magic market fantasy market is huge hundreds of millions of people spending billions of pounds each year on magical fantasy products and we thought with our combined experience of 40 years of design development electronics development the rich and i would get together and make some really magical products our first one is a real magic wand and this is it so it looks pretty much as you'd expect for a wizard's wand but of course a real magic one should actually do something and so with this one i can for example play some music i can rotate it to turn the volume up another way to go down again i can give it a flick to change tracks [Music] stop the music in fact you can control almost anything in your house so for example i can turn on the tv which i can fast forward rewind pause turn it off or even things like ceiling fans and lighting um we started the company last year and by christmas we sold over 10 000 units but we feel that with your help investment and expertise we could take the one company to a revenue of about 18 million pounds within three years thank you very much [Music] business partners chris bernardo and richard blakesley want the dragons to spot money-making potential in their magical take on the remote control so if i come right up to it in return for just a ten percent stake they need two hundred thousand pounds to grow their business but what's behind the magic james khan wants to know what's the technology in this that turns a tv on is it the same as the remote control it is actually and it's a chip that's applied by one of the largest remote control manufacturers in the world so we have contacts there and it's a universal remote control chip so that is the thing that sends out the codes and learns the codes because it's a learning remote control so you can teach it codes of a ceiling fan or if you have electric curtains or lights even this responds by an action exactly that's the difference it's a bit like the wii really yeah and the way we've written the software is it knows which way up it is the whole time so it doesn't matter which way up it is if you turn it to the side as far as it's concerned now that's the top again if you turn it around again that's still the top and it still knows which way is up right and what's your next product uh apart from this one that we've shown here yeah um well um i i i can't say but it's a i can't say what our next product is because we haven't protected it we think it's got very strong patentable so it's all based around magic surprising products so the one company we believe will be a brand that will take make sort of quite magical and surprising products the dragons are clearly absorbed by the product and duncan bannertine wants more information about the inventors themselves so tell me about the two of you i mean where have you come from tell me your story chris um i did an engineering degree from there i started a company that made an electronic display as a component at that place i met richard we developed a remote control actually which sold about two million units this thing you might have seen it about 2002. and what about you richard i was working for the same company did this up until christmas i'm now working full-time for the one company um let me just go back through your figures and you saw ten thousand of these ones yeah just over ten thousand ten thousand three hundred what does the product cost you it was about ten pounds landed in the uk what do you sell it for fifty pounds it's a fifty bucks that's a huge markup yeah that's direct to customers okay so what you're selling to wholesalers for between 28 pounds and 35. 31 pounds was our blended average selling price blended average yeah great price on a 10 pound product impressive margins great product chris and richard are clearly doing well in the den but are yet to receive an offer will they now stand up to the scrutiny of retail expert theo pathetis [Music] so how many do you really believe you can sell your canada year have you got a financial year we're projecting conservatively 1.2 million pounds for this year how much net profit are you going to make out of 1.2 million 50 0.6 million 600 000 pounds what makes you think that you require my 200 000 pounds we don't we don't need the cash to make this worst case forecast we're talking about but we're saying within your investment we think we can do say three million pounds worst case is 1.2 million and make 600 000 pound profit that's correct purely from this which you've already developed you've already got working it's it's there and you want 200 000 pounds for 10 yep okay have there been any special circumstances you think that have influenced this so for instance the harry potter foot movies yeah there are two more harry potter movies coming one of them is is this year in november and then one is the next year in the summer but actually it's appealed to people who like the whole wizarding thing there's there's huge online games with like world of warcraft and age of empires there's other film franchises like narnia and there's uh lord of the rings what's the income a quarter well it's been a hundred thousand pounds in the last quarter but to be growing up a little bit more than that the next quarter as we had more resellers we just signed up a couple of distributors we're just concluding a deal with target in the u.s and one of our distributors wants to put their product into sky mill that happens of every us internal flight pretty much at 600 million people a year sit in front of that chris richard we could be here all day i want your attention for a minute okay i'm going to make you an offer for all the money the 200 thousand pound but i want not ten percent but thirty percent of the company if you make six hundred thousand profit i'll give you ten percent of equity back you have eighty percent of a business making around six hundred thousand profit and we think we can grow that a lot from there so is that dylan can we ask if anyone else is interested to you can if you want to but you've been wasting your time thank you [Music] duncan bannertine is the first dragon to break cover but the structure of his ratchet deal would still end up with the duo giving away double the equity they were offering will any rival dragons now choose to compete you've currently had your your offer from voldemort over there and now hagrid's going to come in and play the same game i'd like to offer you the full amount of money 200 thousand pounds for twenty five percent of the equity of the business can we have any uh share back if we have any particularly good performance then from that point if i put the whole 200k in and own 25 of the business that means one thing to you you've got my attention yes and i put quite a lot of work into it because 200 000 pounds is quite a lot of money is it quite a lot of money okay would you like me to make you an offer would you be interested in joining duncan or peter well the fairness to the other two they've offered you 100 of the money and that in the den shows that somebody actually wants to do this for themselves what offer would you like from me that would make you happy 20 going down to say 10 if we make 1.2 net profit in this year you mean 600 thousand profit how are you no i mean i mean that what we think we should be able to do with you guys on board so you're saying if you do three million yep you get ten back if we can make the business what we think it should be and one point two in profit yeah i think if you were talking about a sliding scale getting it down to 12 percent that worked for you that would work thank you deborah james i think it starts becoming less about the percentages and more about what you're going to get out of it your answer to thea was in your ideal world you'd walked out here with two dragons if the the least we can give away is say 20 25 then i think we want two dragons for that okay but i'm going to offer you half the money for 10 no ratchet that's not thinking of what is it why not well the years are for the same um a moment the same equivalent and give them a ratchet they want two dragons oh in their canny move deborah meaden's tactic to secure the deal is to differentiate her offer from those of her rivals but with just one dragon left will james kahn now opt to share the bid or will he want it for himself i must be i do like the product and i like you guys thank you and i've just been sitting here just listening to abandoned very quietly um i would be happy to offer you the same full amount 200 000 on the basic outline that i think has been discussed so happy to take the twenty percent on a sliding scale go back to ten percent which essentially gives you exactly what you wanted thank you very much why don't you go to the back of the room i have two minutes to think about it thank you much thank you the entrepreneurs now have offers from all five dragons each with differing equity demands but will they choose between getting a particular dragon or dragons on board or retaining more of their company thank you very much dude obviously it's a consumer retail product i don't know everything about all of your businesses but my impression is that theo and peter have got the strongest connections in that market you're wrong to assess that anyway sorry you'd be wrong to assess that okay the dragons have more connections to me can either of you move at all on your offers then it's tricky because then i think to myself what's my maximum upside yeah okay well i'll improve mine okay mine was 30 seconds 20 if you make 600 thousand pound and i'll drop to 10 percent if it 1.2 million okay if you believe you're going to make 600 000. my offer is far far far better than peers uh duncan we'd like to accept your offer thank you thank you all for your other offers richard and chris have done it it was a tense negotiation but they have the cash they needed and now an influential business partner can i say that that was the right decision commercially i wasn't willing to go down to ten percent i know that's why you got it ten percent can't make one point two million pounds and of course i think you'll do well with them presenting in the den is always a nerve-wracking experience next to endure it a guy onwin a prolific inventor of household gadgets and his partner caroline cavanagh they're hoping to withstand the dragon scrutiny and walk away with the 200 000 pounds they need [Music] hello my name is guy unwin and this is my partner caroline cavanagh we're planet products and we've come to pitch for 200 000 pounds for a 15 share of our business i invented the toaster bag in 1999 and to date we've sold over 10 million of them we turn over a million pounds currently and last year we made a profit of 120 000 we sell the toaster bags and other products made with the similar high temperature materials to the trade and retail markets the latest product is our quick chips tray which uh is perfect for cooking oven chips and it's a mesh which allows air to circulate all the way around while cooking so you get crisp food every time another new product of ours is the shelf guard this is a very simple device that protects your hands and arm from burning when reaching into a hot oven when you're cooking and there's the h2go barrow bag for building sites allotments gardens it's a way of transporting up to 80 litres of water in a wheelbarrow where there's no hose pipe available not forgetting our toaster bags they're patented in the uk as well as the usa but you basically prepare a sandwich to toast pop it in the bag and put the bag in the toaster and three minutes later you get a perfect toasted sandwich now we're very excited about our products but we've got to the stage really that we do need dragon's support and direction on board so in in summary the the dragon's investment would be used primarily for pr marketing in-store demonstrations and advertising [Music] housewares inventor guy unwin and caroline kavanagh have delivered an impressive account of the sheer volume of products that they've sold the dragons have been listening intently but will they be tempted to back the duo with 200 000 pounds of their own cash caroline guy i'm peter hi hello off sounds actually very exciting been a little while since i've sat listened to a pitch and thought i'm already interested um you've sold 10 million toaster bags yeah over eight years there was in october let me explain in october 2006 we started the company and this is when i came on board and prior to that garmin guide invented toaster bags in 1999 and he was running the company as sort of guy unwin really and uh he got various people on board and it didn't it didn't work out guy who owns the company give me the structure of the business uh i own 50 58 of the shares caroline has 35 another member of the family has five percent and there's a another no seven another two percent yeah that's right are you husband and wife partners partners boyfriend girlfriend yes sometimes that opens a whole new outfit the couple's candor seems to be endearing them to the investors now james khan wants to know more about the business opportunity what is the retail price of the toaster bag this is 1.99 this one okay good price point these are these are the most popular ones and when we get the odd inquiry from abroad this seems to be the one they want and we have got scandinavian packaging european packaging excellent and who are the customers for the toaster bags who are the just give me the main customers sainsbury's tescos morrisons summer fields poundland in store tj hughes okay who's the biggest tesco in the den the dragons rarely encounter companies with such a strong retail distribution base but for dunkin banner time the issue is how that translates into the company's accounts in the year 2007 to 2008 what is your projected profit before tax points 184 000 net profit net profit net profit pre-tax profit yes after your wages yes you come across very very clever very smart tell me about you before you got involved with guy right okay um i worked for a packaging design company in cheltenham and then i was head hunted to go to work for homes and martians in marlow and they were international packaging design companies and then i set up my own and honestly it was fantastic at the beginning and we did um mns woolworths and i loved it because it was all travelling to the far east but the you know the retail market hit rock bottom it all became really difficult so in the end i wound it up and closed it down and it just was sort of parallel that was going on with guys because i was having these issues so with my skills i just thought that i could help on that side and it gave me a job and it was an opportunity so that's where i saw it and that's why i'm here duncan bannettine might be intrigued by the business on offer but the couple's open and frank answers have set off alarm bells for theopa fetus [Music] caroline um guy i'm theo hello did you liquidate the previous company the previous company was put into administration right oh six you know six yeah why did you liquidate the first company we're in we were in dispute with a previous director so he sued guy's company he got a settlement and uh for about 60 000. you gave him sixty thousand no no no we didn't 17 and then we just couldn't pay him anymore we were advised that that would be we'd put a good thing who else did you leave behind obviously there's some trade creditors the material suppliers do you remember what the final receivers report said it normally gives a figure you don't forget that sort of figure i've got to be honest with you i would remember that figure if it was me maybe 200 total 100 about 200 000 pounds totalized 190 yeah 200. it's a shocking revelation with a previous business that was shut down owing two hundred thousand pounds deborah meaden now has serious questions about their business practice [Music] am i right in thinking that the day after you went into liquidation you started another business yep that alarms me why did you think it was okay to leave 200 000 pounds worth of debt hanging set yourself up in business the next day presumably with some funds yeah limited funds where did you get your limited funds from we did we had um the person who was advising us put in 15 000 pounds which enabled us to start off virtually immediately so you didn't have yourself cash or funds you did not put any cash into this business not at that point but we did arrange for a bank overdraft with the drank with the bank mouth is dry um for equity equity caroline because it's a difficult topic yeah i know it is it's very you know it's very hard you know but we're not hiding they probably their mouth probably went a little bit drier we took professional advice on it because we didn't know what to do caroline professional advice is one thing the way you conduct yourself in business is actually nobody's responsibility except yours and your background is sprinkled with fallouts disputes and liquidation those to me are a bit of a warning signal of the type of environment that i could be getting into so for that reason i'm out guy and caroline's previous dealings have lost them their first dragon and their pitch has suddenly started to look very shaky will the remaining dragons be able to see past their rocky history i'll let you know caroline guy what i think i think family businesses worry me because there's one thing that's quite common families tend to stick together whether it's right for the business or wrong the influence they have on that business they stick together having heard what i've heard it's not investable and i'm out thank you thank you caroline guy i can understand why things can go wrong and litigation happens and business put into receivership these things happen but you fell out with your previous director and you know what i think you'd fall out with me as well so for those reasons i'm out okay thank you two more investors have refused to do business with the couple now will duncan bannertine decide to buck the trend and give them some hope of getting the two hundred thousand pounds they require can i get okay it's pretty obvious you're pretty good inventor maybe not a great businessman are all the rights to all the patents and all inventions and all these products do they all belong to planet products the patents and trademarks are all in my name personally and they are all licensed solely to the company as it is a family concern at the moment we don't see a problem in that obviously if a dragon comes on board we would have to look at addressing that yeah if that is what they wanted you know i'm really interested in this it sounds a great business so what i'm going to do is i'm going to make an offer i'm more than happy to invest 200 000 pounds in you but this is going to take up a lot of time sorting you two out so i want fifty percent of the company duncan bannertine thinks he can do business with the pair but only on his terms fifty percent of their company not the 15 percent they've offered rival dragon james khan is now ready to declare his position um i like you guys actually and i take on board everybody's comments and i'm sure there's some history there but i think my own experiences that you know as long as everybody adds value to the business opportunity then generally you get on um so i think i would be interested in making an offer um i will offer you the whole amount 200 000 pounds for 40 of the business right james i thought we were friends no duncan this is business an astute james khan has waited till the end to declare his hand and has undercut his rival investor will the dragons now go head to head in a bidding war or will they join forces and share the spoils well what about can we look at both of you does that so i don't want to share an investment with anyone else on this okay i think my offer of two hundred thousand pound for fifty percent of the shares it's a good offer i think i can help you a lot i can sort the company out and i can make a lot of money i have no reason to improve my offer can we take can we take it back consider both offers thank you both dragons see this as a risky investment with potentially very high rewards and neither is willing to share the risk or split the returns this is it this is why we're here one or the other guy and caroline must now decide whether to give away a huge chunk of their company or walk away with their equity intact but without the money they came for i'm with you whichever [Music] okay james we've decided to accept your offer very good fantastic fantastic great guy guy and caroline have done it taking james khan's offer and giving away 40 percent of their company has secured them the 200 000 pounds they [Music] need you

Channel: Dragons' Den

Views: 653,259

Rating: 4.824223 out of 5

Keywords: dragon's den uk, deborah meaden, peter jones, touker suleyman, dragons den, dragons den rejects, dragons den successful rejects, dragons den best pitch, dragons den fight, dragons den trunki, dragons den tangle teezer, dragons den biggest investment, dragons den trunki pitch, dragons den tangle teezer pitch, dragons den latest, shark tank rejects that became successful, 2021, Planit Products, dragons den where are they now, Karuma Innovations, The Wand Company, success story

Id: 5myl7GFaEbQ

Length: 38min 46sec (2326 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 13 2021