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Kestrel Court home to Dragons’ Den ‘genius’
20/09/10
Portishead entrepreneur Chris Elsworthy, a Pure Offices tenant, has secured investment from business magnates after appearing on Dragons’ Den.
Chris’s power tool company, C Enterprise Ltd, which occupies serviced offices at Pure Offices Kestrel Court, was looking for an investment of £150,000 from the Dragons. After a grueling grilling and some nifty negotiations, Chris managed to strike a deal with Duncan Bannatyne and Peter Jones, two of the most successful investors on the popular BBC show.
The Dragons, who are notoriously hard to please, praised Chris’s invention to the skies. The CEL POWER8 workshop, an all-in-one set of power tools that can be instantly transformed into their bench-top equivalents, wowed the moguls. “Absolutely some of the best products I've ever seen come into the den; I think you’re a product genius,” said Peter Jones, while rival Dragon Theo Paphitis told the entrepreneur that his ability to design was “great British know-how.”
Chris is delighted with the outcome and is really looking forward to getting the Dragons on board at CEL. “Their contacts, expertise and experience mean that I can get back to doing what I do best - designing new products,” he says. He explains that CEL must now undergo a ‘process of due diligence’, in which the investors will scrutinise every last detail of the business before the deal is finalised. But the ball is rolling even before Jones and Bannatyne get to work - sales have risen 150% since the show.
Chris set up CEL three years ago in his garage, where he designed the POWER8. The business grew rapidly and CEL moved into serviced offices at Kestrel Court in October last year. The inventor says Pure was perfect for a new business and absolutely no hassle at all; “There were no admin problems, no long-term contract worries, and we can always upscale or downscale whenever we want. We may need to take a bigger Pure unit now.”
Click here to see Chris in the Den, then go to www.cel-global.com to explore CEL’s fantastic range of products.
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