Dragons’ Den star’s company now worth nearly £1,000,000 after ‘rare’ investment

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A Dragons’ Den contestant has revealed her company has nearly doubled and stands at a valuation of reaching almost £1,000,000 after not one, but two investments.

Mum-of-four Hayley Hanigan entered the Den during a recent episode, hoping to secure an offer from the likes of Peter Jones, Deborah Meaden, Touker Suleyman, Sara Davies and Steven Bartlett.

What she wasn’t expecting though was a rare offer from two Dragons who didn’t see eye-to-eye on her pitch and business plans, especially one who she hadn’t even considered as an investor for her company.

The London-based entrepreneur had created Tiny Explorer in January 2022 after seeing a gap in the market from her own experiences of travelling with four young children.

She set out to find a solution to help other parents like herself travelling with kids, and needing the likes of extra strollers for their trips.

‘I wished I could just rent one for a week or two, and there was no one that did it, and I was like, this is crazy,’ she explained in an interview with Metro.

‘I was on maternity leave at the time and thought, “I’ll buy five strollers, see how it goes,” used the last of my maternity money that I had left over because it was Covid and I didn’t get to do much during my year off, and that’s how it all began really.’

She sold out of her initial strollers within one week, and realised she was onto something, turning over more than £200,000 in her first and second years.

A Dragons’ Den contestant’s company has nearly doubled in valuation since filming (Picture: BBC) Hayley’s business was founded from her own experiences as a parent (Picture: BBC)

Hayley entered the Den to ask the Dragons for £50,000 for a 10% share, explaining her business and saying: ‘As parents, you amass a huge amount of expensive items and some of the most expensive items are the ones you take for travel only once or twice a year.’

She recalled her first family holiday, enduring 10 hours of her children’s ‘small limbs kicking me on the flight’, only to reach the other side and have to carry them through a passport queue, hoping that she’d be reunited with her buggy soon.

‘I wondered why someone didn’t offer a short-term rental of these items.’

And so did the Dragons. Steven Bartlett told Hayley she’s a ‘force’ and ‘the world is going to move out of your way, I can just feel it.’

‘As you were pitching today, I was thinking that there are people like you that I absolutely believe should be pursuing entrepreneurial endeavours like this, and we should be supporting you in every way that we can. You’re so talented.’

She was asking for £50,000 for 10% of her business (Picture: BBC) Hayley’s company was a solution to travelling parents like herself (Picture: BBC)

However, having no children himself, the podcast host opted out of investing, saying: ‘My only experience of children is being one.’

Peter meanwhile praised Hayley’s ‘great concept’, predicting that it will ‘do really, really well’, but pulled out of investing while the business was in that stage.

Deborah also followed suit, but urged Hayley to take up an offer from Sara, who was willing to give the full £50,000 for 10% and wanted to mentor Hayley.

‘I would love to mentor you,’ Sara said. ‘You are a breath of fresh air. I’m a firm believer that you are a product of the people that you surround yourself with, and I think my life will be better for having you in it.

‘I totally get the market, I’d totally have been a consumer if this had been around when my kids were little, I can see so many areas I can take the business, I can see the journey with you, and I can see all the pitfalls I have made on that journey and you could learn from my mistakes.’

Steven Bartlett was the first to opt out (Picture: BBC) Hayley did secure two offers (Picture: BBC)

She wasn’t the only one, with Touker negotiating his initial £60,000 for 20% offer down to a joint investment with Sara – despite an initial clash between them – and both offering £25,000 for 10% of the business each.

Now, after a rare combination of two investments from Dragons who may now have seen eye-to-eye during the pitch, Hayley’s company is worth nearly £1,000,000, after she valued it at £500,000 during filming the programme last year.

‘We didn’t go in for the money,’ she continued. ‘We weren’t interested about that part at all, we wanted to do a realistic valuation because we all know Dragons hate it when you overvalue your business.’

She laughed: ‘Really, we probably would have given it away for free just to have the Dragons’ input and advice, but yeah, we’re very happy with the outcome.’

Hayley continued: ‘The valuation now is probably around £800,000, and that’s probably being conservative. If we get the couple of signings that we’re hoping to get, I think it will probably push more into the million territory.’

Touker and Sara had a clash, but still chose to invest (Picture: BBC) Hayley’s company is now nearly worth £1,000,000 (Picture: BBC)

Recalling the two offers she received, she went on: ‘Sara’s got kids, so I thought she’d get [the company], we’re females of a certain age as well, and very similar.

‘I didn’t think Touker would be interested at all, for many reasons. He doesn’t seem to be interested in too much, and if he does offer, he offers such an extortionate percentage that most people say no anyway.’

‘We were really pleased,’ she went on. ‘I think that’s how I go into everything, expect nothing, and then if you come out with something, you’re always happy.’

Despite the success of Tiny Explorers, Hayler has maintained her role as tech director at Unilever, and is balancing being a mum-of-four alongside her husband, who is a stay-at-home dad and is training to be a psychologist to help raise their eldest daughter, who has autism and ADHD and needs a parent at home.

Talking about her experience on the show, she said: ‘It was a grilling, and they do ask a million questions. I never expected it to be so long, I genuinely thought you would go in and be in there for like half an hour.’

‘You forget the cameras are there,’ she went on. ‘They’re so discreet that you completely forget them and it turns into a really nice experience.

‘We didn’t go in for the money,’ Hayley told us, after walking away with two offers (Picture: Hayley Hanigan)

‘Where I did get nervous was during our airing party, because we didn’t get to see the clips or anything, so I had no idea how they were going to edit a two-hour questioning down to 15 minutes.’

There was one point that did make the edit in which Sara questioned whether Hayley’s plans for the company to reach booking platforms were ‘achievable’.

‘I am worried that is not an achievable goal,’ the Strictly Come Dancing star warned. ‘It’s so hard to change the behaviour on those websites.’

But despite putting her on the spot, the Dragons had no idea that Hayley was almost already there behind-the-scenes.

She revealed to us: ‘When we went in, we had some bits and pieces going on in the background already for booking platforms.

‘And we knew that we did have that going on, but we weren’t allowed to say because it was at a confidential stage, so I think we were quite confident going in.’

Speaking about the reaction since the episode and the year it’s been since filming, Hayley revealed things have changed for The Tiny Explorers ‘dramatically’.

‘We’re a year down the line, and we’ve got a lot of partnerships in hand, live, or in the process at the moment.

‘The response has been absolutely incredible – the power of network always just blows my mind.

‘People are genuinely so interested and are like, “Wow, I can’t believe you did this when you were working and you have four kids,” and it seems so surreal, everybody has been so complimentary.’

Dragons’ Den airs Thursdays at 8pm on BBC One and iPlayer.

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