Shropshire's Moonpig founder Nick Jenkins roaring to join Dragons' Den

Duncan Bannatyne, Kelly Hoppen and Piers Swinney said the iconic phrase "I'm out" for one final time last series, leaving three empty seats in the Dragons' Den studio.

But now business expert Nick Jenkins is ready to breathe fire into his new role by joining the show.

Mr Jenkins was a pupil at Adams' Grammar School in Newport from 1978 to 1985 and is the founder of the online greeting card website Moonpig.com

It took him five years of losses and four rounds of fundraising before the website made a profit.

Today Moonpig.com ships greeting cards to millions of customers worldwide and has become a household name.

Mr Jenkins sold the company to Photobox.com for £120 million in 2011 shortly after Moonpig.com reached No 3 in the Sunday Times Profit Track 100.

Mr Jenkins said: "I have always preferred the start-up stage to running a larger mature business.

"It is a more exhilarating journey and requires instinctive fast decision making.

"There is often not much information to analyse and the risk of failure is ever present.

"Today's technology means that it is possible for a business to succeed or fail much faster than ever before.

"I am very excited about joining Dragons' Den and using my experience to back some great new businesses and help them through the turbulent first years."

Since 2008, Mr Jenkins has been actively investing in other start-up businesses, mostly in the technology and internet retail space.

He will be joined on the show by Touker Suleyman, a global clothing manufacturer and serial retail entrepreneur, and Sarah Willingham, a global restaurant entrepreneur, serial business investor and leading consumer expert.

The trio will join existing Dragons Peter Jones and Deborah Meaden in the successful entertainment format, which sees budding entrepreneurs enter the Den to pitch their business ideas to the multi-millionaire Dragons willing to invest their own cash.