Dragons’ Den stars’ company brutally branded ‘delusional’ worth more than £7,500,000

Dragons’ Den stars who were branded ‘delusional’ for an astonishing valuation on their company have revealed its worth to be more than £7,500,000.

‘Pet-obsessed’ founders Dr Guy Sandelowsky and Shiv Sivakumar brought their novel protein-based, vegan pet food brand, Omni, to the Den last year, hoping to woo Peter Jones, Deborah Meaden, Touker Suleyman, Sara Davies and Steven Bartlett into investing.

Founded in 2021, their company aims to give pets happier, healthier lives with lab-grown pet food derived from yeasts, algae and pulses, that don’t trigger allergies and sensitivities but promise flavour, while still being calorie-controlled and environmentally sustainable.

In two years, they managed to generate over £2,500,000 in sales, with 80% of their customers becoming subscribers.

Dr Guy and Shiv were asking the Dragons for £75,000 for 1% of their business – a stake Touker blasted as something he ‘wouldn’t even get out of bed for’.

And that wasn’t the only fault he found with the entrepreneurs, after Peter revealed their seven-figure valuation was seven times more than the revenue of the previous year.

‘I get really, really annoyed when people overvalue their businesses,’ Peter fumed.

‘You’re delusional about what this is really worth,’ Touker slammed.

Touker had also dismissed Omni’s lifetime value before Deborah and Steven stepped in to defend Dr Guy and Shiv.

‘That’s absolutely brilliant,’ Deborah had commented, while Steven praised: ‘That’s fantastic, turning £40 into £400.’

They were so impressed they ended up offering to invest, with Steven commenting: ‘I’ve come to learn in the Den that there are two central things that come to form my investment thesis, which are the products and how much I’m passionate about the space and can relate to the problem.

‘The second one is the entrepreneurs, because different entrepreneurs could have walked through this door, with the exact same product and I would have valued the business entirely differently, if I didn’t think the two people in front of me were killers.

‘I’ve come to learn from my Dragons’ Den investments that do exceptionally well, that the single most important factor has actually been: are they killers? I think you guys are. So I have to try and invest in this business. I have to.’

Dr Guy and Shiv negotiated Deborah and Steven down from the 3% they offered each to a joint 2.5%, and have revealed their business has grown since their appearance on the BBC business show.

In an interview with Metro in March 2025, they said the response has been ‘amazing’.

Dr Guy said: ‘We’re trying to keep up, honestly, we’re just a small business trying to help pets live happier lives, and we knew that going on the show would increase our exposure.

‘But we never imagined the demand that we’re seeing now, we’ve had to re-evaluate our stock levels and the number of people helping with our customer service and packaging, so it’s been really, really positive.’

He went on: ‘It’s just a testament to the fact that so many people out there watching the show understood what we’re trying to do, aligned with our mission and were willing to give it a go.’

Shiv added that their valuation is now ‘so much more’ than when they filmed the show nearly a year before it aired in 2025, with the episode also having had a ‘dramatic impact’ on the increase.

In the year leading up to their episode airing, they tripled their business, predominantly through word-of-mouth, with Dr Guy noting: ‘There is a real need for this.’

Reacting to Touker and Peter’s brutal takedown of their valuation, Dr Guy reflected: ‘I feel like when we were in the Den, they were looking at our historical numbers and basing that on our valuation, but what we were basing it on was actually what our revenue was like at that point, because we’re so fast-growing.’

He went on: ‘We can make quite reasonable assumptions about what we’re going to do in the coming months as well, and I felt like that wasn’t necessarily as much their focus.

‘When you look at our run-rate based on our revenue, it’s not as crazy as they were sort of alluding to at all.’

However, Dr Guy stressed that the importance of their experience in the Den didn’t come down to the numbers, but their actual product.

‘In hindsight, the one disadvantage of it is that we didn’t get to show the nation so much of the other stuff we filmed, like the details of our products.’

‘As vets, we’re really good at treating disease, but where I feel we can improve is in prevention,’ Dr Guy explained.

Talking about how he founded the business with former investment banker Shiv, he said: ‘I was seeing a lot of pets that were coming in with problems that I thought nutrition had a part to play in, like skin complaints or gut issues.

‘And all these things are multifactorial in their cause, but if you get the nutrition right you can actually prevent a lot of them, and sometimes even treat some of these problems, so we saw an opportunity to create a whole business around looking after allergy-prone pets.’

Omni sells products including supplements for dogs who suffer from stress and anxiety, especially after so many pets were brought home during Covid, leaving them with separation anxiety as the world returned to normal.

He went on to explain that they’ve seen impressive growth in their food sales because customers continue to keep buying the product as it works for their dogs long term in aiding their allergies and sensitivities without the need for medications.

In five years, they hope to have taken their product abroad and continue with their mission of ‘bringing the benefits of novel protein food and supplements to as many pets as possible’.

‘We’d like to become a household brand,’ Dr Guy added. ‘So if people discover that their pet has a sensitive tummy or they might be allergy-prone, they’ve given us a go, and as a vet, that means a lot to me, because it means we can help so many more pets and so many pet guardians to not have the stress of seeing your dog struggle with some of these problems.’

Since our interview with the founders, the pet food start-up has surged to £11 million in annual recurring revenue.

A version of this article was originally published in February 2025.

Dragons’ Den is available to watch on BBC iPlayer.

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المصدر: Metro UK