A BRIGHOUSE businessman is celebrating today after landing £120,000 of investment from two members of the fearsome Dragons’ Den team.

Chris Hopkins, 40, managing director of solar power business Ploughcroft, survived the battle of wits against the Dragons in the first show of series nine, which was screened on BBC2 last night

During the gruelling pitch, Chris was grilled on all aspects of his business model and why he wanted the Dragons’ hard-earned cash.

And Chris proved to be one of the most successful candidates on the show to date – with four of the five Dragons vying to be involved in his business.

Tough negotiations led to Chris selecting Deborah Meaden and Theo Paphitis as his investment partners – who together take a 25% stake in Ploughcroft in exchange for their funding.

Explaining his choice, Chris said: “Apart from their excellent reputation in the world of business, Deborah and Theo are trusted household names.

“This was very important to me, as I want Ploughcroft to grow to become the household name of choice for solar and renewable energy installations.

“We’re one of the leading solar installers for the UK and I want our name to be synonymous with solar, just like big brand names are with other household industries.”

Ploughcroft is having its most successful year ever – having already doubled year-on-year sales for 2011 and increasing bookings for its solar installation training courses month-on-month.

Chris said: “Growing demand for our services and training courses means we have needed to bring on board 10 team members and open new training centres in Manchester and Stoke to support our UK expansion plans.

“We intend to open two more renewable energy training centres in the next few months, one of which will be in the south of England, opening us up to an entirely new geographical market.

“We want to help the renewable energy industry reach the government’s 2020 targets and for this to happen the UK needs installers that are more skilled.”