Hey 👋🏾
Congratulations, You Raised.
What Happened to the Money?
The industry measures success at the closing bell. Your investors live with what comes next.
Every crowdfunding platform loves a closing headline.
"£1.1 million raised in 9 days."
"Oversubscribed in 5 hours."
Except that's not when the story ends for the investor.
That's when it starts.
The scoreboard nobody checks later
Through early August this year, KingsCrowd's mid-year tracking found 15 companies had failed and 11 had exited, across the whole investment crowdfunding market. Failures were actually down 57% on last year, which is genuinely good news. IPOs and direct listings made up 73% of those exits
But let’s Zoom out further and the picture gets clearer: across 6,375 companies that have raised through Reg CF and Reg A+ since 2016, only 77 have produced an actual exit, that's 1.2%.
Across the wider dataset, the failure rate sits around 7.9% of all equity offerings.
So most companies that raise successfully don't fail outright.
They also mostly don't exit.
They just... carry on, Quietly. Somewhere in the middle, for years, with investors who put money in once and then heard almost nothing.
Why "we raised" isn't the finish line
A closed headline tells you the campaign worked.
It tells you nothing about whether:
The milestones promised to investors actually got hit
The money went where it said it would
The company is still solvent 18 months later
Investors have had a single meaningful update since the confetti
Raising the money is proof your pitch worked.
What happens in the following 24 months is proof your business works.
That Part that’s skipped
Most of the founders pour enormous energy into the 30 days before and during a raise, then the update frequency falls off a cliff the moment the money lands.
That's exactly backwards.
Investors who feel informed:
Are far more likely to reinvest in your next round
Talk about you positively to other potential investors
Give you the benefit of the doubt when something goes wrong
Investors who go quiet for a year, then get a vague "things are going well!" update, start assuming the worst because silence reads as bad news, even when it isn't.
What actually staying in touch looks like
I’m not saying its a legal minimum here. Just an actual, decent relationship with the people who support you.
30 days post-close: what the money has already started doing
90 days: progress against the specific milestones you pitched
180 days: an honest update including what's harder than expected
12 months: a proper look back against what you promised at the campaign stage
If you can't imagine writing that last one honestly, that's worth noticing before you launch, not after.
The real question to ask before you raise again
Forget about "how much can I raise?"
Instead ask:
"Can I look my investors in the eye in twelve months and account for every milestone I promised them?"
If yes, go raise girl
If you're not sure, that's the work to do before you open another round, crowdfunded or otherwise.
📌 This week in your world
Three things worth your time ….
1. Strolll stacked grants and a loan beside private investment
The neurorehabilitation company secured a £3.6m Innovate UK loan, a £700,000 grant and a separate equity round led by IW Capital. Two of those cheques did not cost the founders equity, which is the part many founders miss when they rush straight to an equity raise.
The useful question: What part of your funding requirement could be covered by a grant, loan or innovation programme before you sell more of the company?
2. A female founder walked into Dragons’ Den asking for 3%
Louise Truman went into the Den asking for £60,000 for 3% of Plotpackers. She left with £120,000 from Steven Bartlett and Deborah Meaden for 10%—a sharp reminder that the amount you ask for and the amount of ownership you give away can change very quickly once investors smell momentum.
Worth discussing: Is getting the money always a win if the terms move dramatically against you?
3. DITTO raised $6m for menstrual health
The women-led menstrual-health company raised $6m from FoodLabs and Eka Ventures to expand its supplement business and fund further clinical trials. The interesting part is the use of capital for evidence, not just marketing but because women’s-health founders are often asked to prove demand, safety and clinical credibility at the same time.
The uncomfortable bit: Female founders are often told their market is “too niche” until someone else proves there is money in it.
→ Read more: DITTO raises $6m seed round
Until Next time…..
