A MALVERN businesswoman is celebrating a blaze of publicity from a former dragon.

Josephine Murray, who runs children’s webshop Rain Starts Play, is celebrating winning a weekly Twitter competition run by former Dragons’ Den TV star Theo Paphitis.

Ms Murray tweeted the businessman extraordinaire about her company during his Small Business Sunday (SBS) competition and found her message re-tweeted to his 400,000 followers.

Ms Murray said her business is already reaping the benefit from the backing of the retail magnate and British entrepreneur.

“It’s really exciting to have my business recognised by Theo Paphitis,” she said.

“Winning has gained me hundreds of new Twitter followers, a higher profile and best of all access to the SBS Winners’ Club.”

Rain Starts Play has also won a silver website award from Mumpreneur UK, a national organisation for mums who run their own businesses, and was also shortlisted for best independent retailer and best ethical brand in an awards scheme run by parenting website Lovedbyparents.