Equity Capital
Equity is the most expensive capital you will raise.
It is also permanent. We advise founders, families, and sponsors raising growth, structured, and late-stage equity. But the first question we answer is whether equity is the right rung at all, and the second is what it should cost you in control as well as in price.
Positioning
The wrong door wastes the raise.
A cold deck gets skimmed. A referred deal that genuinely fits an investor's mandate gets a meeting. Most of the value in a placement is created before outreach begins: in placing the company on the capital continuum, rebuilding the forecast so it survives scrutiny, and assembling an investor list that is tiered and matched rather than long.
Investors fund forecasts they believe. They discount projections with no drivers behind them, they walk from a vague use of proceeds, and they price an over-ambitious ask by declining it. A raise that stalls loses more than time; it loses the credibility that gets the next investor to the table.
Coverage
The capital we advise on.
Each of these buys a different set of rights. The structure is part of the price, not a detail of it.
Growth equity
Minority capital for businesses with a driver-based plan for the proceeds and the operating record to support it.
Late-stage private placements
Primary and secondary capital into established private companies, run to institutional diligence standards.
Pre-IPO rounds
Placements ahead of a public listing, prepared against the disclosure and reporting bar the listing itself will set.
Structured and preferred equity
Preference, redemption, and ratchet mechanics used where the gap between price and perceived risk needs bridging honestly.
Minority recapitalizations
Partial liquidity for founders and families without ceding control of the business they built.
Co-investment and single-asset vehicles
Deal-by-deal capital syndicated alongside a lead, including cross-border structures.
Fund formation support
Positioning, materials, and process discipline for first-time and successor funds raising from institutions and family offices.
Process
How a placement runs.
The nine-phase mandate lifecycle applies to every engagement. On a raise, the phases from indications to exclusivity collapse into one another, and the discipline sits in keeping them apart. That work is investor tiering and the wall-cross.
Phase 01
Right-rung test and packaging
Before anything is written: confirm equity is the correct instrument rather than senior or junior debt, because every dollar of it is the most expensive and most permanent dilution available. Then rebuild the forecast to institutional standard: driver-based, every number tied to a driver, assumptions testable, sensitivities shown. That work runs alongside an executive summary, the deck, and an offering document with a precise use of proceeds and honest risk factors.
Phase 02
Materials and data room
A structured data room from day one, not from the first diligence request. Clean diligence is itself a signal: it tells an investor the company is well run, and it shortens the gap between interest and close.
Phase 03
Investor tiering and wall-cross
The list is tiered by conviction names, solid fits, and breadth, and matched to stated mandates rather than assembled by size. A tight group of qualified institutions is wall-crossed under confidentiality first, before the process widens; a small, sophisticated group closes faster and leaks less. Warm introductions lead. Eligibility is screened at intake, not at signing.
Phase 04
Term sheet and negotiation
Control is read as hard as economics: board composition, protective and veto provisions, liquidation preference, information rights, anti-dilution, drag and tag. The waterfall is modelled through preference, participation, and the option pool, so the shareholder sees proceeds rather than a headline valuation.
Phase 05
Diligence and close
Momentum is managed deliberately. The diligence pack is prepared before it is asked for, so verification carries the round to close instead of stalling it, and so the investors who moved first are not left waiting on the company.
Valuation
Full peer analysis, cost-of-capital modelling, and scenario-tested projections.
An ask has to be defensible to a skeptic, not aspirational to a board. That means the valuation work is built to be argued with.
Peer sets built from comparable companies and precedent transactions, screened for genuine comparability rather than convenience, with the exclusions stated.
Cost of capital modelled from the company's own capital structure, risk profile, and market position, not borrowed from a sector average.
Projections tested across scenarios, with the operating drivers behind each case set out so an investor can disagree with an assumption rather than the whole model.
The equity waterfall modelled through preference, participation, and option pool, so dilution and proceeds are understood before terms are agreed.
Genuine differentiation separated from market conditions, because a sophisticated allocator will do that separation themselves and discount whatever survives it.
Unit economics, cohort behaviour, and earnings quality reconciled to the historical financials that support the forecast.
Nothing in the raise materials is a number we cannot walk back to the accounts.
Where we work
The sector matters less than whether the story holds.
Our advisors have raised capital across business services, energy and the energy transition, real assets and infrastructure, industrials and manufacturing, healthcare, technology, and resources, for founders, families, sponsors, and funds. We take a mandate wherever the situation warrants and the equity story can be defended.
Questions
Before you appoint anyone.
When is equity the right instrument, and when is it not?
Equity is right when the use of proceeds carries genuine risk that a lender will not take, such as entering a new market, funding a step change in capacity, or absorbing several years of losses on the way to scale. It is also right when the balance sheet already carries as much service as it can support. It is the wrong answer when the plan is fundable with senior or junior debt at a cost well below the value of the shares you would give up. That comparison is the first piece of work on any mandate, and sometimes it ends with a debt process instead.
What is a wall-cross, and why does it matter?
A wall-cross is a confidential approach to a small number of qualified investors before a raise is more widely known, made under confidentiality so they can evaluate the opportunity while the information remains private. It matters for two reasons. It lets you test price and structure with the investors most likely to lead, before the market forms a view. And it limits leakage. A placement that becomes widely discussed before it is anchored is harder to price and harder to close. The discipline is in keeping that group tight and genuinely qualified.
How should the investor list be built?
By mandate fit, then by tier. Investors publish what they will do: stage, check size, sector, geography, control posture. Most of a long list is people who were never going to invest. We build in three tiers: conviction names whose stated mandate matches the situation closely; solid fits worth a real conversation; and breadth held in reserve. Then we sequence, approaching the first tier under confidentiality rather than broadcasting to everyone at once. The right ten conversations usually close a round.
What causes a raise to fail?
Most often a forecast with no drivers behind it, which is the fastest pass an investor makes. After that: a vague use of proceeds, an ask priced above what the company can defend, a story that depends on market conditions rather than something the business does better than its peers, and concentration or earnings-quality issues surfaced by the investor rather than disclosed by the company. Naming your own risks early is not a weakness in a process; it is the thing that makes the rest of the story credible.
Transaction credentials available upon request.
More advisory