A couple who work with elderly dementia sufferers tugged at the heart strings of TV viewers with a poignant pitch on Sunday night's episode of Dragons' Den.
Philip and Lakshmy Pengelly, who run a care home in Llanelli, braved the notoriously hard-to-please investors on the hit BBC Two show with their simple invention to make meal times easier for both staff and residents.
Called FlipTop, the nifty gizmo is a fold-away plastic table that allows the user to enjoy their dinner, or a cup of tea, in the comfort of their armchair without spilling it or tripping over the stand afterwards.
However, despite a smooth pitch which saw them looking for £10k to help with marketing and making the the item more cost-effective to produce - in exchange for 10% of their business - three dragons turned down the chance to get on board.
Fashion retail millionaire Touker Suleyman who was the first to make an offer, adding that his manufacturing connections in the Far East meant he could get FlipTop's production costs down substantially - the only snag being he wanted a 35% cut.
It then fell to relative newcomer and the youngest Dragon in the Den, home craft magnate Sara Davies, to have the final say - and it turned out the Pengelly's invention had personal meaning for her.
"I really like you two a lot - my nana's in a dementia care home, so you both had me from the start," said the 35-year-old.
"I'm impressed by your passion and ambition - I massively respect that."
She then offered the couple all of the money they'd asked for, but for 25% of the business.
"I'll make this happen overnight and take you to new levels, Sara added, with both Philip and Lakshmy giving her the thumbs up.
She later confessed to the other Dragons that the Pengelly's pitch had given her "flutterbies in my tummy".
She added: "I really wanted to do this for them.
"Good people deserve good breaks," added Peter Jones in agreement.
"We chose Sara because of the way she spoke about dementia care," said former NHS worker Lakshmy afterwards. "You could see that passion was embedded in her heart, just like it is in ours.
"Being on the show has given us a massive boost. We knew it was a good product, but now lots of other people are seeing that too."
