Influencer Millie Flemington Claire appeared on the BBC show pitching for investment in her Human Beauty makeup line.
She also opened up about her life with Cystinosis, which is a rare genetic medical condition affecting one in every 200,000 births where the child receives two copies of an abnormal gene, one from each parent.
Steven was moved by her story, and although he decided against investing in her product, he made a different offer.
He said: ‘Millie. It’s a really, really inspiring story, and I love sitting in this chair, because I get to meet people who have given me this wonderful reminder of human perseverance and creativity and ingenuity and how there’s so many people out there fighting to change things.
‘As a business case, it’s not a financial investment for me, okay, so I’m gonna say that.
‘But I’m willing to invest my time, which means that I’m inviting you to come to my offices in central London, hang out with me and my team.’
He promised to teach her ‘the dark arts and social media and marketing’ to give her a boost.
‘So that’s an offer from me. It’s not a financial one. It’s where I’m out. But I mean offering to invest more time,’ Steven added.
His fellow Dragon Deborah Meaden described it as the best deal, and while none of them wanted to invest, Touker Suleyman and Peter Jones joined the offer to help out with sourcing and distribution respectively.
Millie was overwhelmed as she cried tears of joy over the offers, although some viewers didn’t see it the same way.
‘Steven won’t invest, but he’ll make you a TikTok video,’ quipped someone on X.
A different viewer added: ‘What was different about that makeup that Rimmel etc don’t already offer? That all just felt a bit patronising. Kind, but patronisingly so.’
And a third person wrote: ‘Bartlett patronising levels stratospheric.’
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