Featured Image Credit: BBC
Topics: UK News, TV and Film, BBC, Money
Tom Wood
A pair of Dragons’ Den entrepreneurs sold their business for £12.5 million just a matter of months after appearing on the show.
You might even have heard of the company, as it went on to be really big.
Good job they managed to negotiate a great deal for themselves in the Den, then.
In the end, Will Hodson and Henry de Zoete managed to get a £120,000 investment in Look After My Bills for only three percent of the business.
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In the end, it turned into a seriously lucrative deal for the pair, as they flogged the company to GoCompare just 10 months later in a £12.5 million deal.
For this tale, we have to cast our minds all the way back to 2018, when the pair entered the Dragons’ Den, with their caps in hand, asking initially for £90,000 for a one percent stake.
In the end, they gave up a bit more equity than they’d expected, but secured an extra £30,000 for the pot.
Look After My Bills is a business that does pretty much what it says on the tin.
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They look after people’s bills, auto-switching people to cheaper deals and then picking up the commission afterwards.
All five Dragons at the time were allegedly interested in a piece of that action, but the pair eventually plumped for Tej Lelvani and Jenny Campbell.
At the time, Deborah Meaden said: “Anything that disrupts the blinking energy industry has got to be a good thing.”
The deal has since been hailed as one of the best ever deals in the history of the show.
At the time of their sale to GoCompare, the pair said: “For us, it’s been an incredible ride as we’ve built a fantastic team of energy experts and a culture that will not accept any one of our users being overcharged.
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“Joining forces with GoCo Group will help us bring Look After My Bills even more into the mainstream."
Investor Jenny Campbell also later reflected on one of the ‘best deals’ that was ever negotiated on the show.
She told the Look After My Bills blog: “It was one of the longest negotiations in the whole series with Look After My Bills, lasting nearly three hours.
“I don’t think anyone else went to the wall three times.
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“It can be a good thing if the entrepreneurs in front of you can’t agree to your offer but they have shown they’re prepared to negotiate and negotiate hard.
“I like the hard negotiations because it shows the entrepreneurs’ skills.
“I was okay with where I landed with Look After My Bills.
“Of course I would have wanted 10 percent of business, of course!
“All this means is that we’ll have to make it even more valuable to make the investment worth it!”
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In the end, it turned out to be a good deal for everyone, not least the two owners who turned their business into life-changing cash in just a matter of months.