Brainy Notts grad bags £50k investment on Dragon’s Den

And you can’t even get a grad job


A smarty-pants physics graduate has scored the investment of a lifetime after appearing on Dragon’s Den.

Marc Wileman, who graduated with an Physics Masters’ from Notts only gave away a 10 per cent share in his business, Sublime Science, in return for a whopping £50,000 investment.

During the show, he shot smoke-rings at the Dragons and bragged that he had put on parties for over 260,000 kids and even got a thank you letter from number 10 Downing Street.

Marc on the show

The former Lincoln hall resident, who described the experience as “a little bit mental”, has seen enquiries rocket from 40 a day to over 2000 as a result of his national TV appearance.

Although Marc described the nights out in Nottingham as “fairly terrible”, he said he enjoyed his time in Science City.

Marc filming for his company

Marc said: “The uni was a huge help, the entrepreneur support was amazing for starting a business.

“I thought about getting a proper job, but then thought, if you’re going to start a business, you may as well do it when you’re 22, before you have any real stuff to worry about.”

Before he faced the dragons

Marc, who’s now 29, also studied in Toronto during his time at Notts, only went on Dragon’s Den because of a chance encounter at an entrepreneur’s event.

He said: “I met the founder of HungryHouse who said that even though he massively messed up his pitch, the exposure of national TV was amazing for his company.”

Facing the multi-millionaire Dragons

Since leaving Notts in 2007, the Leicester local has spent all his time working on his business, which was valued at a mental £500,000 and now employs over 120 part-time presenters.

The savvy grad, who got a distinction in his Masters’, had the Dragons begging for a slice of his company and eventually settled on a dual offer from Moonpig founder Nick Jenkins and Restaurant Entrepreneur Sarah Willingham.