The British business-investment programme calls its panel of investors the dragons.
In Dragon's Den, entrepreneurs stand before a panel of wealthy businesspeople and ask for investment. The investors are called dragons because of the programme's title and its imagery of entering a formidable den to face demanding negotiators.
The terminology differs across international adaptations. The American version Shark Tank calls its investors sharks, while the Japanese source programme Money Tigers used tiger imagery. These names describe equivalent roles within related versions of the format, but they are not interchangeable when referring to the British show.
A dragon may make an offer alone or negotiate alongside another dragon. A televised agreement is also subject to due diligence, so an on-screen offer does not necessarily mean that a completed investment reached the entrepreneur after filming.