Sky1 has commissioned a new business-based reality series called The Angel.

The show will see would-be entrepreneurs competing for investment money from a wealthy tycoon, who will rate them on their character and skills rather than their business plans, and only learn about their money-making ideas after deciding who gets the cash.

John Caudwell, owner of a £2bn pound mobile phone business, is the man controlling the show’s £100,000 prize fund and acting as the show’s titular Angel, who will be scrutinising the candidates throughout the series.

The programme's contestants will be tested on six key business skills throughout the five-part series: drive, ambition, passion, resilience, commercial intellect and leadership. Each week they will be pitted against one another in a series of individual tasks, head-to-head challenges and team-based activities, with the worst-performing candidates having to face a grilling from The Angel in the show's equivalent of a boardroom showdown.

While the identities of The Angel’s contestants have yet to be revealed, viewers of business-themed reality shows will already be familiar with Caudwell as the Lord Sugar figure on ITV’s answer to The Apprentice, Natural Born Sellers, which was broadcast in 2008.

Stuart Murphy, director of Sky1 HD, who green-lighted The Angel, said in a statement: “I'm genuinely excited by the opportunity The Angel brings. Populist, audacious and life-changing, this is the first business show where the investor really has to put their money where their mouth is. Investors all say it’s about the person and not the business, and for the first time we're going to test that theory."

The Angel is expected to air on Sky1 HD over the summer.  If you'd like to get involved, click here now.