Peter Jones was the only original Dragon to remain on the panel continuously from the 2005 launch.
Jones is a British entrepreneur and investor whose businesses have included interests in mobile phones, leisure, property and technology. He joined the original British panel alongside Duncan Bannatyne, Rachel Elnaugh, Simon Woodroffe and Doug Richard.
The other original investors eventually left the regular line-up. Jones’s continued presence made him the longest-serving Dragon and a visual link between the programme’s first panel and its later casts. He is also known for his tall stature and for frequently discussing sales, margins, distribution and the scalability of a business.
Continuity is the key distinction in this question: several prominent Dragons appeared in the early years, but they did not all serve continuously from the beginning. Deborah Meaden, for example, joined after the original series rather than being part of the launch panel.