Five regular investors sit on the main Dragon's Den panel in the standard format.
The five-person panel is central to the programme's visual identity. Entrepreneurs enter the room and present to five potential investors, each of whom may question the business, make an offer, withdraw or join another dragon in a shared deal.
The individual people in those five chairs have changed across series. The launch panel included Peter Jones, Duncan Bannatyne, Rachel Elnaugh, Simon Woodroffe and Theo Paphitis. Later line-ups included investors such as Deborah Meaden, Touker Suleyman, Tej Lalvani and Steven Bartlett.
The number refers to the regular panel arrangement, not the total number of investors who have appeared throughout the show's history. Special episodes, guest dragons and changes in casting can make the wider group seem larger, but the standard studio set-up uses five investor positions.