Funding and the ask
Posture settled at the founder working session, 12 June 2026; numbers still to be done.
The posture
The venture bootstraps. Client revenue funds operations from the first engagement, topped up by what the three founders can put in for equipment and set-up; the financial model (section 8) shows the practice profitable at small scale with three people, so external capital is not required to reach viability. That is a direct consequence of scaling on software rather than headcount — there is no junior bench to fund — and the early discipline it imposes (revenue or nothing) is the same proof an eventual investor would want anyway.
Why external capital still comes, eventually
The founding view is that scaling beyond the first sector will take external money — and not primarily for the cash. The right capital partner brings the things bootstrapping cannot: relationships into the infrastructure-investor community the venture sells to, the credibility that institutional backing confers on a young firm selling to regulated boards, and people who can point the venture at doors it doesn’t know exist. The Unity Advisory precedent (US$300M from Warburg Pincus) shows institutional capital actively backs this model class. The honest caveat: the founding team has not raised before, and this view is an assumption to be tested — against advice, and against the structural-vehicle decision (single entity versus backed platform) when it is made.
Sequencing
- Now → first clients: founder-funded set-up, client revenue, no raise
- Revenue proof (one to three clients, repeatable model): the fundraising story exists — demonstrated revenue in a regulated cohort, a playbook ready to run into the next sector
- Raise (optional, structural-vehicle dependent): capital bought for scale, relationships and legitimacy, on the strength of evidence rather than projections
Still open
- How much runway stages 2–3 actually need per founder (links to section 13)
- What Unity-style backing would cost in equity and independence, versus staying single-entity
- Who the right capital partners would even be — part of the fund-landscape research underway