The dragons on BBC2's Dragons' Den can be a scary lot, breathing fire on a hapless parade of entrepreneurs brave enough to venture on to national television to beg for funding. Their very public risk of humiliation may be what keeps us glued to our screens but it has angered real business angels.

These private investors complain that the show scares businesses away and claim that the Dragons seldom deliver the investments they pledge after the handshakes on air.

Insiders reveal that just 47 deals over the six series have received funding, out of an estimated 345 companies that have pitched on the show — the deals struck often fall away after the Dragons investigate further during the due diligence process.

In comparison, angel networks in the UK expect to fund at least one third of the businesses they take on, more than double the Dragons' rate.

Entrepreneur Rachel Elnaugh was a Dragons' Den panellist for the first two series before her company Red Letter Days went bust. She estimated that well under half the businesses offered money on air received funding. “The idea of Dragons' Den was to help entrepreneurs but the show has lost its original magic; it is now about car-crash TV and more about building the Dragons' egos,” Ms Elnaugh said.

She says that for the first series a business analyst was employed to filter out the wannabes and crackpot inventors to ensure quality pitches on the show, but the programme-makers screened him out for the sake of more entertaining television. “The show gives the impression that successful people have to be cut-throat but most angels are tremendously supportive of small businesses,” she says.

While Dragons' Den has raised public awareness of how companies can get funding from private investors, Bill Morrow of the Angels Den investors' network sees the show as bad news for the industry. "The Dragons' Den experience terrifies women in particular. They think they will be ridiculed, sneered at and humiliated. Men are nervous but they see it as a testosterone challenge,” said Mr Morrow, whose network claims 126 completed deals over the past year.

“Dragons' Den is bad for the industry because entrepreneurs are terrified of talking to equity funders. When they get to meet investors they are surprised to find that angels are human beings and not covered in scales.”

Mr Morrow's views are echoed by Rob Desborough of London Business Angels, the oldest network in the UK, which last year achieved £6 million of investment across 15 deals. Those are the lucky ones out of 800 business plans submitted each year by hopeful entrepreneurs looking for funding. Of those, just 42 were selected to present their stories to the Angels.

Duncan Bannatyne is a serial entrepreneur who has been on the Dragons' Den panel for all six series. He has invested £740,000 in more than eight deals on the show. He defends the tough TV talk: “I have never met an angel investor who has given me a polite reason for saying 'no'. You don't get nice cuddly talks. On Dragons' Den we tell people why we say 'no'. Deals do not go through if an issue comes up in due diligence that has not been disclosed and often the entrepreneurs walk away because they get a better offer. I have never heard the Dragons say they have changed their minds.”

The BBC is coy about the number of businesses funded in the Dragons' Den, declaring that the programme plays no part in the deals after filming has finished. It said: “Some great deals have been made in the Den and the Dragons' investments have helped many entrepreneurs across six series.”

Modwenna Rees-Mogg, author of the investors' guide Dragons or Angels says: “Most business angels do not seek fame and they do not want to be on television. For the Dragons, the fame element is a good way to sell themselves, although I do believe they genuinely want to do good deals.”

Angels and Dragons

Four successes: £50,000 was given to Levi Roots for his Reggae Reggae Sauce; £160,000 to Igloo Thermo-Logistics; £150,00 to Peter Moule for Chocbox and £50,000 for Razzamataz Theatre Schools

Two that got away: Danny Bampling and his Bedlam Cube were rejected, so he took out a £100,000 bank loan instead; but Rob Law rejected the Dragon’s £100,000 funding for the Trunki ride-on suitcase

— William Flatau is an entrepreneur and owner of First Finance, a commercial finance brokerage

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