I have raised over £120 million across a forty-year career in finance.
I have been on both sides of the table. I have pitched to investors and I have been the investor. I have negotiated terms and I have set them. I have watched deals close on extraordinary terms and I have watched deals fall apart entirely.
And the single most common mistake I see founder-led businesses make is approaching a funding conversation before they are ready to have it.
Not because the business isn’t ready. Often the business is genuinely strong.
Because the founder isn’t prepared. And in a funding conversation, those two things are not the same.
The funding conversation most founders aren’t ready for
Here is what most founders believe about raising capital.
They believe the quality of the business is what determines the outcome. If the product is strong, the team is credible, and the market opportunity is real, the funding will follow.
That belief is partly true and largely dangerous.
Because the quality of the business determines whether you get a meeting. What happens in that meeting, the terms you’re offered, the valuation you achieve, the structure you agree to, is determined almost entirely by how well you know your numbers and how clearly you can present them.
I have watched founders with genuinely impressive businesses walk out of funding conversations with terms that were twenty, thirty, sometimes forty percent worse than they should have been. Not because the investor didn’t believe in the business. Because the founder couldn’t answer the hard questions quickly, clearly, and with confidence.
And when an investor can’t get clear answers, they price in the uncertainty.
The terms you deserve start here.
Add Then Multiply has a full chapter on what funding-ready actually looks like and what it takes to raise on the right terms.
Three founders. Three versions of the same mistake.
The founder who has built a strong service business and needs capital to expand. The opportunity is real. The revenue is there. But when the investor asks about gross margin by service line, the answer takes days to produce. When they ask about cash runway under different growth scenarios, the model doesn’t exist. The investor offers terms that reflect what they don’t know, not what the business is worth.
The founder with multiple income streams and a brand people trust who is exploring a raise to accelerate growth. They know the top line. They don’t know which parts of the business are actually profitable. The investor spots this within twenty minutes. The conversation changes.
The tech founder with genuine traction who has been told they’re fundable but can’t quite convert that interest into actual investment. The recurring revenue percentage is unclear. The churn is higher than they’d admitted to themselves. The unit economics don’t hold under scrutiny. The investor sees a revenue line. They don’t see a business worth backing at the terms the founder needs.
Three very different businesses. The same avoidable outcome.
They approached the conversation before they were ready to have it.
What funding-ready actually looks like
After £120 million raised and thirty-plus transactions, here is what I know.
The founders who raise on the strongest terms are not always running the most impressive businesses. They are the ones who walk into the room knowing exactly what their business is worth, exactly what the money will do, and exactly how the numbers support both of those answers.
They know their gross margin. Their cash runway. Their unit economics. Their recurring revenue percentage. Their EBITDA. And they know all of it without needing to check.
They have a financial model that tests different scenarios and shows the investor not just where the business is today but where it goes with the capital being raised. They have reporting that is clean, current, and credible. And they have done enough preparation that the due diligence process, when it comes, feels like a formality rather than an interrogation.
That preparation doesn’t happen overnight. It is the result of having the right financial infrastructure in place long before the funding conversation begins.
Not sure how funding-ready your business really is?
The Funding-Ready Scorecard tells you exactly where you stand before a funder, lender, or acquirer does it for you, in under a minute.
When to start preparing
My answer is always the same: at least twelve months before you think you need the capital.
That is not an arbitrary number. It is the minimum time needed to build the financial reporting that makes your numbers investor-grade, to develop the financial model that tells the story the business deserves to tell, and to reduce the gaps in your numbers that an investor will find before you do.
The founders who raise on the best terms don’t walk into those conversations hoping for the best. They know their number. They know their story. And they know exactly how to answer every question an investor might ask before it’s asked.
That is not a talent. It is a preparation.
Know your numbers. Build your foundations. Then add. Then multiply.
What’s the funding conversation you’ve been putting off because you’re not quite sure your numbers are ready? Drop it in the comments. I read every one.
Preparation is the difference.
The founders who raise on the best terms don’t walk into those conversations hoping for the best. They prepare.
Here’s where to start.
📖 Get your copy of Add Then Multiply, including the full funding chapter on what it takes to raise on the right terms.
⚡ With our Funding Scorecard, find out exactly where you stand before a funder, lender, or acquirer does it for you.
✉️ Our weekly newsletter, The Multiplier Effect lands every Wednesday with practical thinking on funding, scaling, and building a business worth owning.
David B Horne
Founder of Add Then Multiply & Funding Focus
Add Then Multiply is a fractional finance and business scaling consultancy helping founder-led businesses at £1M–£10M+ to Fund, Acquire, Consolidate, and Exit.
