Meet the Drapers, an international pitch competition hosted by venture capitalist Tim Draper, is partnering with TikTok for its seventh season. In this new partnership, entrepreneurs will pitch their startups to the public through the short-form video app on upcoming episodes of the show. The public can vote for their favorite submissions via the app's landing page and then watch the pitch reviews live on TikTok. Four finalists will ultimately be selected to compete in an episode of the show in front of a panel of judges and win a $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 has faced an increasingly unpopular ban in the United States, while also promoting its educational services.
Meanwhile, “Meet the Drapers” will benefit from the increased name recognition that comes with the popular video app.
While shows like “Shark Tank” popularized the idea of pitch-off competitions to the general public, “Meet the Drapers” explores tech entrepreneurship more directly.
“We're not looking for the person who invented the gum scraper or started the new bikini company. That's not what we're looking for,” the fun and unconventional investor told TechCrunch. “We're funding things that are going to shake up the world in 10 years,” he added.
The episodes being developed in partnership with TikTok will likely lean more toward consumer tech, given the platform and its audience.
This is the first time that “Meet the Drapers” has partnered with TikTok. The show has been distributed across various platforms, including its own website and YouTube, and has averaged 500,000 views. The show is aimed at a global audience, with episodes filmed in Silicon Valley, Brazil, India, Saudi Arabia, the UAE (Dubai), Denmark, Taiwan and other locations. Filming is often coordinated with Draper's travels and speaking engagements in these markets. Additionally, Draper believes that entrepreneurs can start anywhere, which is why he appreciates the show's global reach.
“We see the show as a way to spread and evangelize entrepreneurship in a kind of viral way,” Draper says.
Image credit: Meet the Drapers
The presentations generally focus on areas where Draper wants to invest, including space, transportation, digital healthcare, AI and Bitcoin.
The seventh season of the show has already wrapped filming and is gearing up for release, and the partnership with TikTok will be part of season 8. Guest judges for the TikTok show have yet to be announced.
SMEs that want to apply will share their entrepreneurial journey in a 30-60 second TikTok video. Applications will be accepted until Saturday, September 7. First round finalists will participate in a live-streamed pitch review event from September 25-27, with the overall winner announced on September 30.
Draper typically awards more than $1 million in cash prizes to contestants, meaning runners-up also get smaller prizes: second place winners receive $500,000, and third place gets $250,000, according to the show's website.
“We don't talk about it, but we consistently allocate between $2 million and $3 million each year,” Draper noted.
Last year, for example, the runner-up received $500,000 in investments, while another contestant received $250,000. Some past contestants have received as much as $50,000. One of the show's most notable winners was tiny home startup Boxabl, but the company has struggled to turn a profit and is under investigation by the SEC. Other winners include at-home health testing service Vivoo, CancerFree Biotech, drone startup BONV, team collaboration software Balloon, and health food company It's Skinny.
Ultimately, entrepreneurs will have to disclose their valuations, he added.
Draper estimates that the show has made around 35 to 40 investments in total to date.
Overall, as an investor, Draper has stakes in companies such as Baidu, Hotmail, Skype, Tesla, SpaceX, AngelList, SolarCity, Ring, Twitter, DocuSign, Coinbase, Robinhood, Twitch, Cruise, and the controversial Theranos.