The pitch
What walked into the Den
Thortful appeared on Dragons' Den in season 15, episode 9, which aired in 2017, pitched by Andrew Pearce.
In the pitch, Thortful asked the Dragons for £80,000 for 16% of the business, valuing the business at about £500,000.
After the show
What happened next
Thortful struck a deal in the Den.
Our read
The Hub verdict
Andrew Pearce asked for a slim slice: £80,000 for 16% of Thortful, the online greeting-card marketplace, which prices the business at £500,000. That is a confident valuation to defend while giving away so little equity, and he walked out with two Dragons behind him, Tej Lalvani and Jenny Campbell.
A marketplace model, where independent creators list their cards and the platform takes a cut, is the kind of scalable tech story Dragons tend to lean toward, because growth costs less than it does in a business holding stock. Two investors sharing a 16% stake each end up with a small holding, which suits a founder who wants the contacts without the oversight.
A slim 16% offered, and two Dragons took it.
