Dragons' Den is a reality television program format in which entrepreneurs pitch their business ideas to a panel of venture capitalists in the hope of securing investment finance from them.
The program originated in 2001 in Japan, where it is known as The Tigers of Money (Japanese: マネーの虎, romanized: manē no tora), a pun on "The Tiger of Malaya" (マレーの虎, marē no tora), which was the nickname of WWII general Tomoyuki Yamashita.
[1] The format was created and is owned by Nippon TV and is distributed by Sony Pictures Television.
In return, the contestant gives the dragons a percentage of the company's capital stock, which is the chief point of negotiation.
The program does not show the entire pitch as scenes are selected and edited from the episode due to time constraints.