viewers saw Deborah Meaden and Steven Bartlett team up on the BBC show tonight (February 6) to invest in pet nutrition company which was, set up by entrepreneurs Shiv Sivakumar and Dr Guy Sandelowsky.
The pair spoke exclusively to in advance of the episode airing and confessed there was one thing that surprised them about the experience.
“I didn’t think that we would meet the Dragons afterwards,” Shiv said. “So it was really nice to actually spend a bit spend a bit of time with the Dragons that we’d secured, and to see them in real life and have a little interaction. It made it feel just a lot more real. Because everything before that was a bit unreal – like we couldn’t believe it actually happened.
“And then afterwards they were very supportive. They gave us their time. They said we did great. There was a very real human element that you don’t particularly see on TV all the time with them. And it was really good to see them not be their Dragons (persona) and just be human,” he said.
His business partner Guy agrees. “My biggest surprise was just how warm they were. I think Stephen hugged us both when he decided to invest, and I think Deborah did as well. I remember just thinking it would (just) be a handshake so that was really nice. And then we met them after backstage, and they were just like, ‘We’re on your team now. We’ll be on your WhatsApp. Just speak to us. We’re going to support you.’ It just felt very, very nice.”
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Shiv Sivakumar.and Dr Guy Sandelowsky secured funding from Deborah Meaden and Steven Bartlett (Image: BBC)
The pair launched , their revolutionary pet health brand, which consists of food and supplements, in 2021 after Guy, a practicing veterinarian for over a decade, witnessed countless cases of preventable, nutrition-related illnesses in pets.
As Dragons’ Den superfans they had been hoping to get in the room with the investors for quite a while and it proved to be third time lucky.
“We applied two years in a row. The first year we didn’t really hear back. The second year, we were sort of scouted (by producers), applied and got really far but fell at the last hurdle. They said it wasn’t the right business for the mix of businesses they had that year. And then we applied again and this is the year that we got on,” Shiv said.
They were looking for £75,000 for 1% of the business but ended up compromising to bring both Deborah and Steven on board at 2.5% between the two of them, down from the 3% each dragon was seeking. While this was more than they had planned on giving away they insist they are happy with the outcome.
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Deborah Meaden invested in a pet food and supplement company Omni, in the latest Dragons’ Den (Image: BBC)
“We weren’t going to accept giving away a big chunk of the business. That was something we were determined not to do, because we’d seen it a lot in the Den, and we just didn’t think that was ever right,” Shiv said. “
They definitely should get a deal – they’re bringing value as in who they are in the personalities that they are – but me and Guy both didn’t feel that we were going to give those large stakes that sometimes are given away in the Den and that there was some tension around the valuation.
“It felt like they were used to seeing businesses that were at a slightly earlier stage, and of course, at that point, the expectation is that they would take larger equity. So I think that was our biggest pushback…and we stood our ground
“We were happy with the result, the number that we arrived at, I think it could potentially be one of the highest valuations for a pet food business,” Guy added.
Dragons’ Den is on BBC One on Thursday nights at 8pm. Previous episodes are available to watch on BBC iPlayer.