Dragons’ Den stars’ company brutally branded ‘delusional’ now worth more than £7,500,000
The investors a savage reaction.
Dragons’ Den stars who were branded ‘delusional’ for an astonishing valuation on their company have now revealed its worth to be significantly more than £7,500,000.
‘Pet-obsessed’ founders Dr Guy Sandelowsky and Shiv Sivakumar brought their novel protein-based, vegan pet food brand, Omni, to the Den, hoping to woo Peter Jones, Deborah Meaden, Touker Suleyman, Sara Davies and Steven Bartlett into investing.
Their revolutionary company aims to give pets happier, healthier lives with lab-grown pet food derived from yeasts, algae and pulses, that don’t trigger allergies and sensitivities but promise flavour, while still being calorie controlled and environmentally sustainable.
In two years, they’d managed to generate more than £2,500,000 in sales, with 80% of their customers becoming subscribers.
Dr Guy and Shiv were asking the Dragons for £75,000 for 1% of their business – a stake Touker blasted as something he ‘wouldn’t even get out of bed for’.
And that wasn’t the only fault he found with the entrepreneurs, after Peter revealed their seven-figure valuation was seven times more than the revenue of the previous year.
‘I get really, really enjoyed when people overvalue their businesses,’ he fumed.
‘You’re delusional about what this is really worth,’ Touker slammed.
Omni founders Shiv and Dr Guy brought their pet food business to the Den (Picture: BBC) Touker Suleyman slammed them as ‘delusional’ (Picture: BBC)Touker had also dismissed Omni’s lifetime value, before Deborah and Steven stepped in to defend Dr Guy and Shiv.
‘That’s absolutely brilliant,’ Deborah had commented, while Steven praised: ‘That’s fantastic, turning £40 into £400.’
They were so impressed they ended up offering to invest, with Steven commenting: ‘I’ve come to learn in the Den that there are two central things that come to form my investment thesis, which are the products and how much I’m passionate about the space and can relate to the problem.
‘The second one is the entrepreneurs, because different entrepreneurs could have walked through this door, with the exact same product and I would have valued the business entirely differently, if I didn’t think the two people in front of me were killers.
‘I’ve come to learn from my Dragons’ Den investments that do exceptionally well, that the single most important factor has actually been: are they killers? I think you guys are. So I have to try and invest in this business. I have to.’
Steven Bartlett was on the hunt for ‘killer’ entrepreneurs (Picture: BBC) Peter Jones was not impressed by the valuation (Picture: BBC)Dr Guy and Shiv negotiated Deborah and Steven down from the 3% they offered each to a joint 2.5%, and have now revealed their business has grown even more since.
In an interview with Metro, they said the response has been ‘amazing’.
Dr Guy continued: ‘We’re trying to keep up, honestly, we’re just a small business trying to help pets live happier lives, and we knew that going on the show would increase our exposure.
‘But we never imagined the demand that we’re seeing now, we’ve had to re-evaluate our stock levels and the number of people helping with our customer service and packaging, so it’s been really, really positive.’
He went on: ‘It’s just a testament to the fact that so many people out there watching the show understood what we’re trying to do, aligned with our mission and were willing to give it a go.’
Shiv added that their valuation is now ‘so much more’ than when they filmed the show nearly a year ago, with the episode airing also having a ‘dramatic impact’ on the increase.
Shiv and Dr Guy walked away with two investors (Picture: BBC) Deborah Meaden and Steven Bartlett stepped in to defend the entrepreneurs (Picture: BBC)In the last year alone, they’ve tripled their business, even without the TV exposure, predominantly through word-of-mouth, with Dr Guy noting: ‘There is a real need for this.’
Reacting to Touker and Peter’s brutal takedown of their valuation, Dr Guy reflected: ‘I feel like when we were in the Den, they were looking at our historical numbers and basing that on our valuation, but what we were basing it on was actually what our revenue was like at that point, because we’re so fast-growing.’
He went on: ‘We can make quite reasonable assumptions about what we’re going to do in the coming months as well, and I felt like that wasn’t necessarily as much their focus.
‘When you kind of look at our run-rate based on our revenue, it’s not as as crazy as they were sort of alluding to at all.’
However, Dr Guy stressed that the importance of their experience in the Den didn’t come down to the numbers, but their actual product.
They’ve had huge success in the last year (Picture: BBC)‘In hindsight, the one disadvantage of it is that we didn’t get to show the nation s much of the other stuff we filmed, like the details of our products.’
‘As vets, we’re really good at treating disease, but where I feel we can improve is in prevention,’ Dr Guy explained.
Talking about how he founded the business with former investment banker Shiv, he said: ‘I was seeing a lot of pets that were coming in with problems that I thought nutrition had a part to play in, like skin complaints or gut issues.
‘And all these things are multifactorial in their cause, but if you get the nutrition right you can actually prevent a lot of them, and sometimes even treat some of these problems, so we saw an opportunity to create a whole business around looking after allergy-prone pets.’
Omni sells products including supplements for dogs who suffer with stress and anxiety, especially after so many pets were brought home during Covid, when people were constantly at home, leaving them with separation-anxiety as the world returned to normal.
He went on to explain that they’ve seen impressive growth in their food sales because customers continue to keep buying the product as it works for their dogs long term in aiding their allergies and sensitivities without the need for medications.
In five years, they hope to have taken their product abroad and continue with their mission of ‘bringing the benefits of novel protein food and supplements to as many pets as possible’.
‘Within five years, we’d like to become a household brand,’ Dr Guy added. ‘So if people discover that their pet has a sensitive tummy or they might be allergy-prone, they’ve given us a go, and as a vet, that means a lot to me, because it means we can help so many more pets and so many pet guardians to not have the stress of seeing your dog struggle with some of these problems.’
Dragons’ Den continues on BBC One and BBC iPlayer on Thursdays at 8pm
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