The BBC first broadcast the UK television series Dragon's Den in 2005.
The British version premiered on BBC Two on 4 January 2005. It adapts the Japanese business reality format Money Tigers, in which entrepreneurs seek investment from wealthy businesspeople.
Contestants present their companies to a panel of investors known as dragons. They negotiate over valuation, equity and investment, although a proposal made in the studio is not necessarily completed afterward.
The programme became one of the BBC's best-known factual entertainment formats and later moved from BBC Two to BBC One. Its success also helped establish international versions of the Dragons' Den format, including Shark Tank in the United States.