Dragons Den first appeared on television in 2005. The show became a huge hit and has since been developed in over 20 countries worldwide including the United States, Japan, Russia and even Afghanistan.

The UK version, series 1 featured Peter Jones (Phones International), Duncan Bannatyne (Bannatyne Fitness and Health), Simon Woodroffe (Yo! Suchi), Rachel Elnaugh (Red Letter Days) and Doug Richard (Computer & IT entrepreneur). Simon left after the first series and was replaced by Theo Paphitis (Rymans).

The end of series 2, saw two further changes when both Doug and Rachel decided to leave. Doug had gone through the whole of series 2 without making any investments whilst Rachel's Red Letter Days had gone into administration, leaving it difficult for her to carry on.

Stepping in to the empty seats in Series 3 were two new Dragons, 'Richard Farleigh' an Australian business angel and Deborah Meaden, who ran a multi-million holiday business. Richard stayed for two series (3 and 4), before being controversially dropped by the BBC. He had at that time been one of the most popular Dragons to date.

Next to take a chair in the Den was James Caan from the private equity firm Hamilton Bradshaw. James became another popular Dragon and remained for a further 4 series.

Series 9 in 2011 saw for the first time a second female join the Dragons. Hilary Devey who had made her fortune in freight logistics, owned Pall-Ex a huge palletised distribution network.

In 2009 Dragons Den also went on-line, when two new Dragons were introduced, Shaf Rasul, an Edinburgh based business man who made his fortune in computers and property and Julie Meyer, an entrepreneur and Chief Executive of Ariadne Capital. Dragons Den On-Line allowed entrepreneurs to pitch their ideas via a video uplink. If selected, the entrepreneurs would then go on to pitch directly to Julie and Shaf.