Tag Archives: Dragons’ Den

SHANNON entrepreneur Noel Marshall secured €100,000 of investment on BBC’s Dragons’ Den last Thursday night. His passion for the product really came through on the show, in which some back and forth negotiation saw him agree with Sara Davies that she would take a 20% stake in the company for the £100,000 investment. The investment comes with the rider that her stake will drop to 10% after she makes her stake back. The Clare man’s presentation was one of the highlights of the show and asked if Backballer had seen a sales boost on the back of the show, Noel responded, “Oh we have yeah, we have of course. We’ve taken 100 grand in orders on the back of it.” In the usual course of things, that represents around five times what he would expect to take in. Noel was fairly happy with how he had appeared on the show. “It was fine, I had a fair idea how it …

  Irish Raw Chocolate Business Magic Mayan has expanded its sales into Northern Ireland and is growing in size following owner Darren O’Connor’s appearance on RTE’s Dragon’s Den last night (Sunday, April 30). While the county Clare family business did not secure an investment from the five dragons, in the days after filming Magic Mayan signed a contract to export its chocolate and protein bombs into the UK via Northern Ireland. Employing five people and with plans to expand the workforce and production of chocolate and protein bombs even further in the coming months, the artisan raw chocolate business based in Ennis continues to grow. “We are currently selling 35,000 protein bombs a month and more than 1,000 bars of hand made chocolate each week through our Irish distributers, and online,” explained Darren, who took over Magic Mayan two years ago with his wife Sinéad. “The protein bomb market is growing at a huge rate internationally as people are becoming …

SMART Futures champion and star of Dragons’ Den, Barry O’Sullivan is encouraging Leaving Certificate students to consider careers in science and technology. He is bringing this idea to the fore in advance of the July 1 CAO change of mind deadline. CEO of Altocloud, Mr O’Sullivan is also encouraging leading tech companies in Ireland to get involved with Smart Futures to inspire young people and break down any stereotypical perceptions they may have about careers in science, engineering or technology. According to research with over 2,000 Irish third-level students, conducted by Amárach Research as part of Science Foundation Ireland’s Smart Futures programme, students’ main concern when making their CAO choice is whether they will “fit in”, ranking it higher than other factors like career prospects. The Smart Futures programme, which is managed by SFI Discover and coordinated in partnership with Engineers Ireland, provides a coordinated platform for science and technology companies to reach out to young people and their parents …