Dragon’s Den Spin-Off Next Gen Den to Focus on Tech and Start-Ups

As of February 2, fans of Dragon’s Den will be able to watch Next Gen Den, a tech and start-up focused spin-off of the show, available to be watched each Monday via CBC’s website.

In keeping with the bite-size nature of media designed to be watched on mobile devices, each webisode will be 10 minutes long.

The first webisode will feature Bryan Gold and Adam Rivietz, co-founders of #paid, a start-up with roots in Ryerson’s Digital Media Zone (DMZ) program.

Also pitching will be University of Toronto engineering alumni Marissa Vu and Vivek Kesarwani, designers of the SWISH Android app, which helps basketball players perfect their shot using their smartwatch. Vu and Kesarwani’s company, Onyx Motion, was founded during the pair’s apprenticeship during The Next 36 entrepreneur development program and has just been admitted to the latest cohort of the University of Toronto’s Early Stage Technology (UTEST) program.

It’s not only the demographic pursued by the CBC that’s getting younger. The dragons themselves are all under 40, with an average age of 27 and a combined personal wealth of $100 million.

“Canadian entrepreneurship, particularly tech start-ups, are exploding,” said Tracie Tighe, executive producer, DRAGONS’ DEN.  “We don’t always have room on our TV show for as many of these early-stage entrepreneurs as we’d like to feature. Here you will see smaller, riskier deals than we see on the broadcast show; most of these businesses aren’t proven models yet. The fun is watching our new panel of Dragons sort through them. Will they discover the next Mark Zuckerberg, or spot the next Blackberry?  We hope the NEXT GEN DEN will seed the next big thing.”

New dragons include serial tech investor Michael Hyatt, Buytopia.ca CEO Michele Romanow, Freshii CEO Matthew Corrin, and Valleymede Building Corp. CEO Paul Miklas.