In the UK programme Dragon's Den, the investors are collectively called dragons.
The term is built into the programme's title and describes the businesspeople who sit on the panel. Entrepreneurs enter the den, make their pitches and answer questions from the dragons before hearing whether any investor is prepared to offer funding for equity.
The terminology differs across international adaptations. The American version uses “sharks,” while the Japanese source format used “tigers.” Those labels refer to comparable investor roles, but they are not the official collective name used by the British programme.
The word also helps explain why the show is often described as an investment format rather than a conventional competition. The dragons are not judges awarding a single prize; each is an independent potential investor, and more than one may sometimes pursue the same business.