How to raise capital for your business

Your round isn't stalling because the business isn't good enough.

It's stalling because nobody is actually running the raise.

I heard the same three problems all the time.

We've been in investor meetings for five months and not one term sheet or honestly, we're not sure which investors we should even be speaking to or they said they loved it and then nothing.

These aren't three problems.

These are actually three symptoms of one problem.

You are out there pitching, you're not actually running a raise as a process.

Over the last eight years we've seen two very different approaches to raising money from investors.

The first are out there pitching, so they're taking every intro that they can get.

They're telling their storey a little bit differently each time.

Then they wait, they maybe follow up politely once or twice, the trail goes cold and then they start speaking to the next investor.

They're meeting investors one by one.

If one doesn't work out, only then they move to the next.

And critically, they see the first term sheet as the finish line.

The other type of founder is running a system.

They have a researched targeted list of investors.

They have one narrative sharpened until it travels.

They have a pipeline of investors with different stages and different dates.

And they're moving investors in parallel to a timeline.

And they use that to build momentum, build build competitive tension.

And then terms are negotiated from that competitive tension from a position of strength.

An unmanaged raise or poorly managed raise takes more from you than just your time.

It also takes months of your Attention which is pulled out of the company, away from sales, away from development.

And also the numbers that you're raising on begin to go stale and have to continually be updated.

It also reduces your leverage, sometimes to the point that it's gone.

If you have one investor, so one option, they will set the terms for you.

If you have two, three more ideally then you have some leverage.

You'd also burn your Runway mid raise at the worst possible time to be negotiating anything.

So who am I and why should you even listen to this?

My name is Michael and I'm a venture capital lawyer.

I've also been a COO of a clean tech startup prior to that.

And for the last eight years I've been helping founders to raise money from investors to start or grow their business.

Not as a coach.

And this isn't just some online course that you watch in your own time.

This is working alongside founders in the pipeline, on calls and in term sheet conversations.

So it's from first outreach to term sheet and to cash in the bank.

I've worked with founders Pre Seed Seed Series A, B, C and onwards up to private equity deals and and A transactions when they're exiting everything from 1 million to 100 million plus.

And primarily with founders and investors in Ireland, the UK, the US and across Europe.

We've helped founders to raise over 760 million euro in the last few years including on some deals that you can verify in the media.

To give you an example of those, so a specialty pharma company in paediatric oncology $35 million.

An escrow style payments infrastructure for online marketplaces $5.5 million.

An ocean data company running uncrewed survey vessels 115 million euro real time AI analytics for customer contact centres, 6 million euro.

An AI fleet safety platform for commercial vehicle operators 49 million.

Same ocean data company but just two years earlier at a different stage of development 30 million.

A payment fraud prevention platform for merchants and processors 7.7 and a doctor led aesthetic clinic group that was scaling into the US was $15 million and many, many more.

Very few companies are obviously fundable on day one for lots of different reasons.

The ones that we have seen be successful are the ones who are running a process, a system.

It's usually the same three phases in the same order and ideally 12 weeks from start to term sheet.

And so that's what we do at Fundraising school.

It's the 12 week pfp system.

Prove, then find, then pitch in the same order every time.

Prove that you're fundable first.

This is about metrics, Unit economics, milestone plan and a storey that connects today's traction to tomorrow's potential.

Because ultimately you're trying to sell investors a vision of the future and your ability to execute on that vision.

Next comes find.

So this is finding the right investors.

30 to 50 names across Dream fit and fallback tiers.

Each research to five layers before you send anything.

And then you go to pitch, compete and sign term sheets.

So your meetings are batched into weeks, your data room is ready to go before you go out.

Your competition is created by running a process efficiently, building momentum and bringing people along at the same time.

And then term sheets are negotiated from strength.

So why do you need to prove first?

Because nobody funds potential that they can't measure.

So you need to audit your position against what investors expect at your stage of development.

That could be seed, series A, series B.

They're all very different and the investors are looking for something very different at each of those stages.

So you need to master the numbers that decide your round.

That could be growth, retention, margins, ltv, cac.

And then you need to define exactly what the money buys.

So how much are you raising, why are you raising it, what's that going to do for the business and where is that going to get you?

So by week three, you should have that undeniable evidence and a storey that you've already stress tested before you go out.

Next comes to find.

So you need to find 30 to 50 investors across Dream fit and fallback tiers.

So every name should be researched five layers deep.

So investment thesis, portfolio patterns, partner interests, recent activity and your actual connection point as well.

Then you upload that into one master list and then you run that, drives your outreach and you run that as your pipeline.

So by week seven, you should know exactly who you're contacting and exactly why they should care.

So for example, if you're a Series A stage, FinTech, you should not be contacting MedTech Series B investors.

It's an enormous waste of your time and theirs.

But that's exactly what a lot of founders get stuck in, basically speaking to the wrong people or at the wrong time or about the wrong type of company.

Then you jump into phase three.

Phase three is about pitching and it's about meetings.

So your first meetings, five to eight per week, batch tight, so the round is visibly live.

Then you jump into Diligence.

So this is where some investors are deep in the data room, some won't be.

They'll be at different stages.

That's completely normal.

But you're trying to create some competition, so you're not running a queue system, you're trying to hold the slower parties to the pace of the faster ones, build momentum.

I'm not talking about fomo.

And then you need a deadline, so you need everybody working towards a goal.

You need a tight process, you need to show you can execute and you need to bring it to a head.

You can't skip a step and get the same results as what we've seen.

So if you find before you prove, basically finding investors before you prove you're ready for those investors, you could burn your best contacts while you're still unprepared.

And if you pitch to them before you find the right investors, you'll end up spending your best weeks pitching to the wrong investors.

So what changes then?

When a process is run properly, you go from we're out raising to a raise with a date on it.

From chasing warm intros to a ranked list that you're working through systematically, from hoping for one yes to having enough interest to have a choice and signing whatever you're offered, to negotiating from a position of strength.

Now before you book a call with fundraising school, is this even for you?

The reality is most businesses won't be suitable for this type of investment.

It's worth the call if you're raising a million or more in the next six months or so.

Ideally you'll have raised some money before, so maybe you've closed the seed round, but this is your first time at Series A.

Or you've closed Series A, but now you're raising Series B.

It's not absolutely critical that you've raised money from investors before in terms of your application to fundraising school, but it will be helpful.

It's also worth a call if you want to make sure you're signing the best possible deal, that you're not leaving money on the table and that you're not losing or giving up too much control of the company.

That's obviously important for you, for your shareholders, for your early investors and for your other co founders.

And finally, you want a properly run process and not just generic advice.

This isn't for you.

Or maybe just not yet.

If you're raising less than a million or you're pre product, it's not for you.

If you want to completely outsource the whole fundraising process to somebody else, because unfortunately the investors will want you front and centre.

You're absolutely key to the whole process and to their investment.

If you're just shopping for lists of investor emails, this isn't for you either.

You'll probably find those online elsewhere, pretty cheaply.

You can go and spam them all and be ignored like every other founder who does that.

Finally, if you're not sure you want to raise at all, then this probably isn't for you yet.

But if you fit into any of these categories, you can still go to Fundraising Skool.com and you can sign up for Fundraising OS, which is completely free.

you can use all of the tools, the community of founders, and I'll be there as well to start raising money immediately for free.

So what's on the call then?

Well, it's broken into two parts.

The call is about 30 minutes.

It's me, it's you, and it's talking about your round.

So in the first half of the call we'll focus on where you are now.

So we'll talk about the size of the round, the stage, the traction, the timeline, who you've been speaking to what you feel the blockers are at the moment.

In the second half of the call, we'll focus on whether it's a good fit for you, and whether we should work together or not.

I would also mention that we have a 12 week raise guarantee.

So if you've done the work and if you don't have a signed term sheet within 12 weeks, I'll continue working with you for another 12 weeks absolutely free.

That's to de risk it for you.

So book the call and bring your round.

It's 30 minutes, you don't need a deck.

And worst case scenario, you'll figure out what's blocking you and hopefully we can help you with that.

You'll see the link below.

There are a limited number of calls available every week.

It's updated on a rolling three day basis, so if you don't see a time that suits you, make sure in check back.

You're only going to raise this round once, so it's probably worth a call for 30 minutes to run it properly.

Follow the link below and, we'll see you inside.