Dragon's Den South Africa's Dragons Revealed

The five South African "dragons"  who will appear in Dragons' Den South Africa have finally been revealed. The Rapid Blue produced local version of the international format show will attempt to find and support aspiring entrepreneurs who have innovative product, service and business ideas. 

The local entrepreneurs will have the task of convincing a formidable panel of Dragons that their business idea is viable.

And the dragons are: 

•  Gil Oved 

He is the only one with prior experience as a TV presenter - viewers might recognise him as one of the former teen presenters of ZapMag on the ertswhile SABC's TV1, and he also did inserts for M-Net's Carte Blanche.

Gil Oved's online trading venture went bust in 2001 but today he and Ran Neu-Ner helm a R600 million turnover company, The Creative Counsel, that employs almost a 1 000 people.

•  Lebo Gunguluza 

Lebo was marketing manager for the SABC's MetroFM before working at ad agency Herdbuoys and then starting his business Gunguluza Entertainment and Corporate Fusion and then Gunguluza Enterprises & Media.

• Vusi Thembekwayo

He is the CEO of Watermark Pan-African Capital Ltd and is the youngest director on a JSE listed company.

• Polo Leteka Radebe

Polo is the chief executive of Identity Partner, a small and medium enterprises advisory and fund management services firm founded in late 2007 by Leteka Radebe, Sonja Sebotsa and Raisibe Morathi. Together they have over 45 years of collective experience in business and investment banking – and also have investments in the technology, petro-chemicals, transport and insurance sectors.

• Vinny Lingham 

He funded his first technology business at age 24 by selling his house for a R125 000 profit and racking up R75 000 in debt on his credit cards. He started incuBeta, Clicks2Customers, Yola.com and launched Gyft in 2012.

Nkateko Mabaso, M-Net's director for local interest channels calls the five business people "a very impressive collection".

"The diversity of entrepreneurial spirit and individuality of each of the five dragons is certainly upping the stakes and is likely to play a big part in making Dragons' Den SA unmissable viewing," says Nkateko Mabaso.

Dragons’ Den South Africa, in partnership with Telkom Business, allows entrepreneurs an opportunity to access venture capital funding, solid experience and business know-how to take their creative idea or business plan to the next level

Dragons' Den South Africa will debut on Mzansi Magic on Tuesday 23 September at 19:00