Venture capitalist Tim Draper’s international pitch competition, “Meet the Drapers,” is partnering up with TikTok as it heads into its seventh season. Under the new tie-up, entrepreneurs will pitch their startups to the public through the short-form video app for one of the show’s upcoming episodes. The general public will then be able to vote on their favorite submissions through a landing page in the app followed by a livestreamed pitch review on TikTok. This will all culminate in the selection of four finalists, who will compete on an episode of the show in front of judges in hopes of winning the $1 million investment from Tim Draper.
For TikTok, the deal allows the company to position itself as a champion for small businesses at a time when its platform is under an increasingly unpopular U.S. ban, while also allowing it to promote its educational offerings.
Meanwhile, “Meet the Drapers” will benefit from the increased visibility provided by the popular video app.
While shows like “Shark Tank” have brought the idea of the pitch-off competition to the mainstream public, “Meet the Drapers” explores tech entrepreneurship more directly.
“We’re not looking for somebody who invented a gum scraper or…a new bikini company. That isn’t really what we’re after,” the entertaining and iconoclastic investor tells TechCrunch. “We’re funding something that 10 years from now is going to rock the world,” he adds.
The episodes being developed in partnership with TikTok will likely lean toward consumer technology, given the platform and its audience.
This is the first time “Meet the Drapers” has ever worked with TikTok. The show was previously streamed across various platforms, including its own website and YouTube, where the shows average half a million views. The program caters to a global audience, with shows filmed in areas including Brazil, India, Saudi Arabia, the UAE (Dubai), Denmark and Taiwan, in addition to Silicon Valley — often in conjunction with Draper’s travels and speaking engagements in those markets. Plus, Draper believes that an entrepreneur can start from anywhere, which is why he appreciates the pitch-off show’s global footprint.
“We actually think of this show as proselytizing and spreading entrepreneurship in kind of a viral way,” Draper says.
The pitches generally focus on areas that Draper likes to invest in, including space and transportation, the digitization of medicine, AI, bitcoin and more.
The seventh season of the show has already been filmed and is being readied for release, making the TikTok partnership a part of season eight. Guest judges for the TikTok show have not yet been announced.
Small businesses that want to be considered will showcase their entrepreneurial journey in 30- to 60-second TikTok videos. Applications are accepted through September 30. Live-streamed pitch reviews are Oct. 1-3 and winners are announced Oct. 4.
Typically, Draper sets aside more cash than the million-dollar prize to award to show participants, which means even runners-up will gain a smaller investment. On the show’s website, it’s noted that the second-place winner receives $500,000 and third place gets $250,000.
“We never talk about this, but we always allocate about two to three million per year,” Draper notes.
Last year, for instance, the runner-up got a half-million investment while others received $250,000 investments. A small handful of past participants have also received $50,000 investments. One of the more notable winners of the show has been tiny-home startup Boxabl, though that company has struggled to reach profitability, and has been under SEC inquiry. Other winners have included at-home health testing service Vivoo, CancerFree Biotech, drone startup BONV, team collaboration software Balloon and health food company It’s Skinny.
In the finale, the entrepreneurs also have to reveal their valuation, he adds.
In total, Draper estimates the show has made somewhere around 35 to 40 investments to date.
Overall, as an investor, Draper has backed companies like Baidu, Hotmail, Skype, Tesla, SpaceX, AngelList, SolarCity, Ring, Twitter, Docusign, Coinbase, Robinhood, Twitch, Cruise and others, as well as, more controversially, Theranos.
Updated 9/9/24, 11 AM ET with new dates for applications, reviews and winners, which were recently changed, we’re told.
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