The Japanese business reality show that inspired BBC's Dragons' Den was Money Tigers.
Money Tigers, known in Japan as Money no Tora, placed entrepreneurs before wealthy investors and asked them to pitch business ideas for funding. The programme established the basic format later used internationally: a presenter introduces a business proposal, investors question the founder, and the entrepreneur seeks money in exchange for equity.
The British version began in 2005, but its concept was not created specifically for the BBC. Dragons' Den became one of several international adaptations of the Japanese format. A common mix-up is to identify Shark Tank as the original; Shark Tank is the American adaptation, not the Japanese programme that first supplied the format.