Alan Sugar founded Amstrad, the business empire associated with his Dragons' Den career.
Sugar established Amstrad in 1968; the name was formed from his initials, Alan Michael Sugar, and the word Trading. The company began by importing and selling electronic goods before developing products of its own, including hi-fi equipment, satellite receivers and personal computers.
Amstrad became particularly prominent in the 1980s through the Amstrad CPC range of home computers. The company later entered the satellite-television market and supplied set-top boxes to Sky. Sugar sold Amstrad to BSkyB in 2007.
Sugar joined Dragons' Den as a Dragon in the programme's fourth series, bringing a technology and consumer-electronics background to the panel. He is sometimes mistakenly described as the founder of Sky, but Amstrad's relationship with Sky was that of a technology supplier and later an acquired company.