Two men from Putney whose £100,000 BBC Dragon’s Den deal collapsed within four months of appearing on television have received full backing from two investors who happened to be watching the business venture programme.

Shane Lake and Tony Charles appeared on the show last November and successfully pitched their idea to the infamous dragons, with James Caan and Duncan Bannatyne initially investing £100,000 in exchange for 50 per cent of their business...

But, four months after filming, the agreement ground to a halt after Mr Caan became unsure whether the business would take off.

Investors Bryan O’Connell and Andrew Fuller had seen their pitch on TV and came to their rescue.

Mr Lake, from West Hill, said: “After appearing on TV, we had literally thousands of people emailing us. It took about two weeks just to read through all the messages.

“We were so busy. We almost missed Bryan’s initial approach – which came at the exact time we realised that the offer from James and Duncan wasn’t going to work out.”

Mr O’Connell, an experienced businessman, clearly felt the dragons had missed a trick and had no doubt about investing.

He said: “We have experience in investing in similar websites and immediately felt that this idea had legs. The team had achieved so much with so little that it was clear that our £150,000 would have a big impact. We didn’t get the equity deal obtained in the den, but the business has grown significantly over the last year.”

The entrepreneurs’ idea was to create a website, hungryhouse.co.uk, which would simplify the whole process of finding a restaurant, ordering a takeaway and paying online.

Mr Lake, aged 35, said: “We met at university in Sydney and decided to start a business. We brainstormed for a few days and one of Tony’s ideas was an online food ordering service like they had in the US. We both remembered the film The Net, where someone ordered a pizza through her computer, and that was the trigger for our business idea.

"On reflection though, we are glad the negotiations with the dragons fell through. The new deal – £150,000 for a smaller equity stake – values the business at over three times what was agreed in the Den. It was a long process, but we finally have the money we need for our nationwide expansion.”

By Jamie Henderson