The show, now in its 10th year, sees budding entrepreneurs enter the ‘den’ to pitch their business ideas to the multi-millionaire dragons to persuade them to invest.

And as someone who successfully bid for four founds of funding, Jenkins will know acutely how they will feel.

He established Moonpig.com in 1999, and sold it for £120m in 2011 to Photobox.com just as it reached number three in the Sunday Times Profit Track 100.

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.”

Jenkins now sits on the investment committee of Impact Ventures UK, a fund that backs social enterprises using innovation to find better solutions to social issues in the UK, and has been putting his money into other start-ups since 2008.

The other two new dragons are global clothing manufacturer and retailer Touker Suleyman and Sarah Willingham, a global restaurant entrepreneur, investor and consumer expert.

Controller of BBC Two and BBC Four, Kim Shillinglaw, said: “It’s wonderful to welcome such an impressive line-up of new dragons – together they’ll bring an exciting new dynamic to the show as they turn up the heat on the prospective entrepreneurs brave enough to enter the den.”

Nearly £15m worth of investment has been offered by the dragons since the programme first aired.