Five investors originally sat on the British Dragon's Den panel in its first series.
The inaugural panel consisted of Peter Jones, Duncan Bannatyne, Rachel Elnaugh, Doug Richard and Simon Woodroffe. Together they established the familiar arrangement in which entrepreneurs face several potential backers at the same time.
Having five investors creates a competitive dynamic: a contestant may receive several offers, be questioned by the whole panel, or negotiate with one investor after the others withdraw. Later series used changing combinations of dragons, but the original number was five.
The number of investors is sometimes confused with the number of original investors who remained for later seasons. Those are different facts. The question asks how many were seated on the first-series panel, not how many continued throughout the programme.