{"id":303695,"date":"2026-02-18T04:48:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T04:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/303695\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T04:48:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T04:48:09","slug":"limavady-entrepreneur-enters-the-dragons-den","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/303695\/","title":{"rendered":"Limavady entrepreneur enters the Dragons\u2019 Den"},"content":{"rendered":"<p align=\"LEFT\">A <a href=\"https:\/\/www.derrynow.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">County Derry<\/a> entrepreneur behind a corporate sports events business is to appear on an upcoming episode of the popular Dragons\u2019 Den TV series.<\/p>\n<p align=\"LEFT\">Limavady man John McClarey founded\u00a0Edinburgh-based <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/reel\/DU0SFY3CH9f\/?igsh=ejN1eXAxeDNyYWk3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Business Fives<\/a>\u00a0ten years ago without seed investment, starting out as a single charity sports event in the capital. The venture has grown into a multi-location operation spanning more than 50 cities across the UK and Ireland, as well as mainland Europe.<\/p>\n<p align=\"LEFT\">Working with high-profile clients such as PwC, EY, eBay, HSBC and Sky, McClarey has helped raise in excess of \u00a31 million for good causes. <\/p>\n<p align=\"LEFT\">He entered Dragons&#8217; Den\u00a0with the goal to gain the knowledge and expertise that would allow Business Fives to increase the impact its corporate charity football events can create and maximise its current revenue streams from sponsorship and golf.<\/p>\n<p align=\"LEFT\">Viewers will be able to see how he fares as he presents his business to the current Dragons &#8211; Peter Jones, Deborah Meaden, Touker Suleyman and Steven Bartlett on\u00a0BBC One and BBC iPlayer, with the programme due to air on Thursday, February 19 at 8pm.<\/p>\n<p align=\"LEFT\">READ NEXT:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.derrynow.com\/news\/derry-sport\/2016513\/kilrea-s-ceadach-o-neill-making-his-mark-at-arsenal.html?utm_source=Newsletter%20Derry%20Now%20Sport&amp;utm_medium=Newsletter%20Email&amp;utm_campaign=newsletter&amp;utm_content=Kilrea%27s%20Ceadach%20O%27Neill%20making%20his%20mark%20at%20Arsenal\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Kilrea&#8217;s Ceadach O&#8217;Neill making his mark at Arsenal<\/a><\/p>\n<p align=\"LEFT\">Speaking ahead of the broadcast, McClarey, whose mother Angela (nee McMacken) hails from Dungiven, said: \u201cStepping into the Den was one of the best things I\u2019ve ever done in business. <\/p>\n<p align=\"LEFT\">\u201cIt was an amazing experience to present the journey of Business Fives to entrepreneurs who I have held in high regard for many years and I\u2019m really looking forward to seeing how the business comes across on screen.\u201d<\/p>\n<p align=\"LEFT\">Business Fives delivers professionally-organised football, golf, mixed touch rugby and e-sports events, bringing businesses together while raising money for thousands of charitable causes and promoting employee engagement and networking.<\/p>\n<p align=\"LEFT\">Companies and organisations involved can fundraise for a charity of their choice ahead of the event, and the winning teams from the various tournament tiers from each event win a donation for their chosen charity.<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>          <script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A County Derry entrepreneur behind a corporate sports events business is to appear on an upcoming episode of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":303696,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[93,61,60,143346,282],"class_list":{"0":"post-303695","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-limavady","12":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=303695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303695\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/303696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}