Dragons’ Den success stories: Flavourly (and what you can learn from them)

Company name: Flavourly
Description: Food and craft beer subscription service
Series: 12
Year: 2015 (February)
Investment sought: £75,000 for 5% equity
Why didn’t the Dragons invest? Founder Ryan O’Rorke accepted an offer of £75,000 from Piers Linney and Peter Jones in return for a 20% stake, but O’Rorke later rejected the offer after the show

Young entrepreneur Ryan O’Rorke had the Dragons eating out of his hands when he appeared on the Den earlier this year pitching his business Flavourly; a luxury food and craft beer subscription service specialising in products such as bacon jam and chilli popcorn.

Having already raised over £100,000 in Angels Den’s “fastest ever” crowdfunding project, Flavourly proved to be an attractive proposal for Meaden, Jones, Bannatyne and Linney who all made offers of half the money in return for 10% equity.

On screen, O’Rorke appeared to accept the offer from Linney and Jones but off screen the food entrepreneur decided to reject the deal, turning to the crowd once again.

Having waited until his Den appearance was broadcast to go live on crowdfunding platform Crowdcube, seeking £300,000 for a 17% stake in the business, O’Rorke eventually closed the round with £515,000 secured from 339 investors, in return for 34% equity.

A staggering 65% over its initial target, the crowdfunding investment was six times larger than the offer presented by the Dragons which shows that the public can sometimes be better backers than multi-millionaire investors!

Having shipped over 500,000 products to date with 500% year-on-year growth, the Startups 100-listed company is now eyeing revenue figures of £1m and has overseas expansion on the cards.