Dragon Linney splashes £100,000 in biggest-ever Den deal

Outsourcery boss digs deep to secure a slice of publishing business

Outsourcery boss Piers Linney has signed the biggest-ever deal on Dragons' Den after splashing out £100,000 for a stake in a tech firm which creates personalised children's books.

LostMyName publishes personalised books for kids based on their name. Customers type in a child's name on the firm's website and based on the letters, a personalised story is created which can be made into a book and posted to the customer.

The firm had been trading for only six months ahead of its appearance on the BBC show – which aired last night – but managed to rake in £460,000 in sales over that time.

After a long negotiation, Linney secured a four per cent stake in the firm for £100,000 on the condition that existing venture-capital investors would allow him to increase his slice of the business at a later date. The deal is the biggest in Dragons' Den history.

LostMyName said the concept is based on "about a billion miles of code to make all the technology work", something which caught Linney's eye.

Since joining the Dragons' Den line-up last year, Linney has invested in a range of ventures, such as a clubbing-holiday startup and a cellulite-busting fake-tan product. LostMyName is among the first tech firms he has dug deep to be a part of.

He took to Twitter as the show aired to congratulate his new business partners.

"Great team and business. Wait until the next products are launched. Technology arrives in the Den!", he tweeted.

"A £2.5m valuation makes sense if the business could be worth many multiples of that! Rapid growth, profitable and technology that can be leveraged across a number of sectors."

LostMyName said the deal was "pretty brilliant" despite the process being less than comfortable.

"[We] did our pitch while all the Dragons stared at us like we'd broken into their homes and stolen heirlooms and were there to say sorry. My advice to anyone going on Dragons' Den would be, don't wear wool, as it gets pretty warm."