CHECKLIST
Fundraising Readiness Checklist
About an hour to score yourself honestly, and most of a year to fix what the scoring finds, which is why the list runs before the round rather than during it. Rounds are rarely lost to the idea. They are lost to a cap table that does not reconcile, a metric that moves mid-process, or a surprise that arrives after the term sheet, when every surprise is priced against you.
- Five sections, twenty checks, about an hour
- The cap table, the metrics and the advance assurance investors wait for
- What kills rounds late, listed early enough to fix cheaply
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Who this checklist is for
Founders and managing directors planning a raise in the next twelve months, or already in conversations, who want the process to survive diligence at the price the term sheet said.
You are planning to raise next year
Twelve months is the honest lead time, because the most valuable asset in diligence is a run of clean months and those cannot be backfilled. Management accounts that reconcile to the bank, a model the ask comes off, EMI paperwork with valuations, IP assigned in writing: each is cheap to fix now and expensive to repair mid-round, and two of them take months either way.
You already have interest and want to move fast
Momentum is the scarcest asset in a round, and momentum is price. The checklist’s answer is to build the data room before the term sheet, so questions are answered in hours rather than weeks, and to compute the metrics deck from the books before diligence rebuilds churn, concentration and unit economics from your ledgers and finds a different answer.
You have raised before and watched one nearly come apart late
The last section is the late killers: the related-party invoice, the change-of-control clause in the biggest customer contract, the bridge loan nobody mentioned, the founder disagreement that surfaces in reference calls. Every one of them is fine disclosed and fatal discovered, and the whole point of the list is to move them from the second column to the first.
FACTS
The cap table is opened first
Legal diligence starts with the cap table against Companies House and the signed share certificates, because nobody can buy shares whose ownership is uncertain. Every allotment filed, every previous SEIS and EIS round documented, every option granted with a valuation. It is the most common late killer, and it is a morning’s work to check now.
20 checks
Five sections
12 months
The honest lead time to fix what the scoring finds
FACTS
Advance assurance before conversations open
If your investors will claim SEIS or EIS relief, HMRC’s advance assurance is the piece of paper angels wait for, covering the first £250,000 of qualifying investment under SEIS and up to £12 million lifetime under EIS. Applying mid-round costs weeks at exactly the moment weeks cost momentum, so the checklist puts it months before the first meeting.