Winnipeg businesswomen enter the Dragons' Den

Two Winnipeg women have shown they have what it takes to enter the Dragons' Den.

Carla Foley and Alison Duffy are business partners and co-creators of Paternity Testing Centres of Canada.

They have insight into how stressful it can be to face the dragons on the CBC reality show.

"It's intense but as soon as you get in there you realize they are just business people and they are just humans," Duffy said on CBC Manitoba's Weekend Morning show.

"Once you go through that you feel like you can go into any boardroom and talk to anyone."

Foley and Duffy currently supply paternity tests at pharmacies across Canada but wanted financial backing and help from the dragons to expand into larger pharmacy chains. They provide two types of paternity testing: legal testing for certain services and lawyers and non-legal testing for people to use on their own.

Foley said she knows how important paternity testing can be. After about 38 years she reunited with her own sister when they found each other online.

"It was an intense moment. There were lots of tears and lots of emotions. Now I can relate to the clients," she said.

The paternity test is often used in high stress times in a family's life, they said. They are used when the father of a baby isn't known or sometimes after death-bed confessions.

However, for the business itself, explaining to the dragons what DNA testing was and why it was a good business venture was one of their toughest challenges yet.

"They were tough because we had such a short amount of time to explain the enormity of what we do," Foley said.

"For them to wrap their head around what DNA testing actually entails was our biggest triumph," Duffy added.

The business partners can't divulge their outcome just yet, the episode will air on Wednesday, they do say that having Winnipeg's support has made all the difference.

"Winnipeg has been so supportive to us. This is our hometown and we are proud," Foley said.