Founders usually ask how long a raise takes and expect an answer in weeks. The honest answer is that the raise itself is the short part. What determines the timeline is how much preparation happened before anyone was approached.
Here is what the stages actually are, and where time is genuinely lost.
Preparation: four to eight weeks, and it is not optional
Before an investor sees anything, the structure has to be settled, the documents have to reconcile, and the public record has to match what the pack says.
That means the instrument is chosen, the security chain is written down, the use of funds adds up to the amount being raised, the projections state their assumptions, and Companies House agrees with the team page.
Companies that skip this do not save the time. They spend it later, in the middle of a raise, in front of people who have already formed a view.
Outreach: two to six weeks
How long this takes depends almost entirely on whether the approach is targeted.
An instrument that suits the investors being approached moves quickly. A debt instrument shown to equity investors, or a UK tax-advantaged structure shown to investors outside the UK tax net, does not — and that mismatch is usually a structuring decision made weeks earlier, not a sales problem.
Diligence: two to eight weeks
This is the stage most sensitive to preparation. Investors ask for the loan note register, the filed accounts, the security documents, the contracts behind the revenue.
If those exist and reconcile, diligence is a fortnight. If they have to be assembled or corrected while the investor waits, it is two months, and every week spent producing a document is a week the investor spends wondering what else is missing.
Completion: two to four weeks
Documentation, signing, funds flow. Mechanical, provided the structure has not changed. If terms are renegotiated at this stage — and they are, when diligence turns something up — add time.
So, realistically
Three to six months from a standing start for a well-prepared raise. Longer where the structure is unusual, the jurisdiction is complex, or the preparation was thin.
Raises that complete in six weeks almost always did the preparation months earlier, or were pre-sold to investors who already knew the business.
Where the time actually goes
Three things account for most overruns.
- Choosing the instrument late. Deciding the structure after the conversations have started means re-explaining a moving target.
- Documents that do not reconcile. One arithmetic error turns a proposition into an audit.
- Approaching the wrong investors. Six weeks of polite refusals is not market feedback. It is a targeting error.
None of these are about effort. They are about sequence. Settle the structure, get the pack right, then start — and the raise takes roughly as long as it should.
Related reading
- What goes in an information memorandum
- The seven documents investors ask for in diligence
- What does an introducer do, and how are they paid?
Mark Johnson is a Director of BDM Wealth Management, which introduces capital raising opportunities across bonds, loan notes, IPOs and SEIS/EIS. To discuss a raise, get in touch.
BDM Wealth Management is an introduction business and is not regulated. This article is general information, not financial, tax or legal advice, and does not constitute an offer or invitation to invest. Capital is at risk and you may get back less than you invest. For high-net-worth and sophisticated investors only. Take independent professional advice before making any investment decision.