The alternatives, and what is free
Not every raise needs an advisory firm, and not everyone reading this is ready for one. Here is the honest map: who else does this and what part of it they actually solve, plus the material worth reading before you spend anything at all.
The capital raising masterclass, 19 lessons
The whole course, free, no email address and no account. It runs from how much you actually need to raise, through the terms that are working now, to the mental models behind a raise that closes. If you only take one thing off this page, take this.
19 lessons · nothing gated · nothing to cancel
The alternatives, by what they solve
These are not interchangeable. A raise has four separate problems in it: the legal structure, the financial model, the investor process, and the administration afterwards. Most tools solve one. Knowing which one is the whole decision.
Fund administration and investor portals
Software that holds your cap table, distributions and investor reporting after a raise is structured. They administer; they do not form the structure or find the capital.
SPV and fund formation platforms
Productised vehicle formation, usually priced per SPV. Fast and cheap when you already know the structure you want and have the investors lined up.
Education and community
Courses and communities that teach you to run the process yourself. The right answer if you have more time than capital and want to own the skill.
Doing it with counsel alone
A securities attorney drafts the documents correctly and stops there. Nothing about marketing, investor process or the financial model is inside that engagement.
Retail real estate marketplaces
Platforms where accredited investors browse listed deals. A distribution channel for a sponsor who already has a completed offering.
Each link goes to a side-by-side comparison written against that specific product. All comparisons in one place.
Free, from us
No email required on any of these. If reading them is all you ever do with us, they were still worth writing.
Reg D 506(b) versus 506(c)
Which exemption permits advertising, which does not, and what verification each one obliges you to do.
M&A planning guide
The sequence an acquisition actually runs in, from target to close.
Acquisition financing benchmarks
The bars lenders apply: DSCR, loan to value, sponsor net worth against the ask.
LBO modelling
How the debt, the seller piece and the equity fit together on a leveraged purchase.
Rollover equity
How a seller keeping a stake lowers the cash a buyer has to raise, and why a rational seller agrees.
Starting a private equity firm
What the first fund actually requires before anyone can invest in it.
What a data room has to contain
The document set an investor reads before they wire, in the order they read it.
SBA acquisition financing
Where the 7(a) fits, what it will not cover, and the equity injection it still requires.
Seller notes and earnouts
The two structures that most often close the gap between price and available capital.
Questions principals ask
Straight answers to the objections that come up before anyone commits.
Case studies
Closed raises and acquisitions with the structure named in each one.
Pricing
What engagements cost, before you speak to anybody.
Free, from the source
Read the regulator rather than somebody summarising the regulator. These cost nothing and answer more than most paid courses do.
SEC EDGAR full-text search
Every Form D ever filed. Read how comparable sponsors structured and sized their offerings, for free.
SEC: Regulation D exemptions
The rules themselves, from the regulator, rather than somebody’s summary of them.
SEC: accredited investor definition
Who qualifies, including the routes that are not income or net worth.
SBA 7(a) loan program
The program terms first-hand, including what a business acquisition is eligible for.
SBA size standards tool
Whether a target counts as a small business, which decides SBA eligibility before anything else.
IRS: apply for an EIN
Free, online, same day. Any vehicle you form needs one and nobody should charge you for it.
Doing it yourself
It is entirely possible. The exemptions are public, the filings are public, and a securities attorney will draft documents for a fee that is knowable up front. What doing it yourself costs is time and sequence: the order the pieces are built in is what decides whether an investor can say yes, and that order is learned expensively when it is learned alone.
The honest test is which you have more of. If you have time and a single deal, read the material above, start with the exemption that matches whether you intend to advertise, and build the financial model before the pitch deck. If you have a live deal and a deadline, the sequence is the thing you are buying.
Everything linked above is free and none of it asks for an email address. Take what is useful.
If you want to talk it through
Bring a specific business or property and whatever documents exist. The call covers which structure your deal supports and whether an engagement is the right next move at all.