They might not have convinced the stony-faced VCs in the Dragons’ Den to part with their cash, but things are looking up for Irish food video site Lookandtaste.com as it launches its first iPhone app. The paid-for app, priced at $9.99, has 300 recipes as well as video demonstrations from the company’s in-house chef Niall Harbison—the number will rise to 1,000—while a “lite” version offers 20 of the site’s most popular dishes for free. Release.

The company’s pitch for £100,000 was turned down by Duncan Bannatyne & Co. last Autumn but the TV appearance of Harbisson and CEO Sean Fee brought them wider attention and in February Irish-government-backed Enterprise Ireland, along with a software company and some private investors, contributed €400,000 (£358,000) in funding, bringing the company’s total funding to date to €540,000 (£483,300). The site changed its name from iFoods.tv to avoid confusion with US social network, iFood.tv—a similarity which turned off the Dragons investors.

Fee told me the site is moving into licensing its content to commercial sites and producing its own web TV shows: the company has signed a deal with a kitchen manufacturer to be part of an online campaign which launches in the Autumn—Harbison’s how-to videos will be part of a fridge ad campaign—while other brands are keen to have their kitchenware and food products featured in the site’s recipe vids. On Tuesday at 12pm the site launches its first, seven-minute Look and Taste food show, featuring news, recipes and interviews.