Equity fundraising:
opening up your capital to the right investors,
on the right terms

Some projects are poorly suited to debt finance: a commercial push whose returns will only come through in three years' time, international expansion, heavy R&D, or simply a balance sheet that needs rebalancing after years of investment. There are also turning points in a company's shareholding: a long-standing shareholder who wants to exit, a new generation to bring in, an industrial partner who wants to seal the alliance with an equity stake. In every one of these cases, the question that keeps business owners awake at night is the same: will I lose control of my company? The honest answer: it depends entirely on how well the deal is prepared. A fundraising undergone rather than led — rushed, and facing a single candidate — is paid for in dilution and one-sided terms. A well-prepared fundraising, run as a competitive process, can be negotiated.

Opening up your share capital is not simply a matter of "selling shares". Between a straight capital increase and debt lies a whole spectrum of options: convertible bonds (the investor lends now and will — or will not — convert later, which avoids fixing a valuation too early), preference shares, structured shareholder loans — all forms of quasi-equity that strengthen the balance sheet while controlling dilution. The second lever is valuation: it is defended with evidence — normalised EBITDA, a well-supported business plan, comparables — not with conviction. The third, often underestimated, is the shareholders' agreement: governance, exit clauses, the investor's liquidity. That is where your freedom over the coming years is decided, far more than in the percentage you give up.

Our work starts well before the first investor meeting: scoping the real need (raising too much dilutes you unnecessarily; raising too little forces you to come back from a position of weakness), building the information pack and the equity story, and a well-argued valuation. We then approach the relevant investors in our network — growth capital funds, family offices, industrial players — in parallel and in confidence, because it is the number of expressions of interest that creates your negotiating power. Finally, we support you through the negotiation of the term sheets and the shareholders' agreement, translating each clause into concrete situations: what happens if you want to sell in four years' time? If a strategic disagreement arises? If the investor wants to exit before you do? In any equity fundraising, a business owner who understands their shareholders' agreement negotiates better — and lives more comfortably with the years that follow.