Two Things Kill Deals: Time and Lawyers
- Bella Battsengel
- 11 hours ago
- 8 min read
The Singapore Deal That Died in Three Months
A renewable energy company nailed the pitch. The family office loved the initial conversation. They sent a list of diligence questions.
Then silence. Three months of silence.
The family office eventually moved on. The founder never understood why. The pitch was strong. The business metrics were solid. The market opportunity was validated.
None of that mattered. The deal died because of response time, not product quality.
This pattern repeats constantly in capital raising. Founders optimise for pitch perfection while ignoring the operational infrastructure that actually closes deals.
After 17 years of connecting investors with emerging companies, the pattern is clear. Two things kill deals more than any other factor.
Time and lawyers.
Why Time Kills Deals More Than Bad Metrics
Every investor you pitch is evaluating 5 to 30 other opportunities simultaneously. Your competition is not just other companies in your sector. Your competition is every other deal consuming that investor's attention.
When you delay responses, you do not stay at the top of their consideration list. You get removed entirely.
The Attention Decay Curve
Investor interest follows a predictable decay pattern.
Week 1: High engagement. Questions come quickly. Interest is genuine.
Week 2-4: If responses are fast, momentum builds. If responses are slow, interest cools.
Week 5-8: Silence signals lack of organisation or lack of interest. Investor moves to other opportunities.
Week 9+: Deal is effectively dead. Investor has mentally closed the file.
The renewable energy company that lost the Singapore family office fell into the Week 9+ category. They were competing with other opportunities that provided immediate answers.
The family office did not reject the company. They simply allocated attention elsewhere.
The Efficiency Equation Investors Never Explain
Capital raising is a marketing and sales process. Your business is the product. Investors are the customer.
In B2B sales, response time directly correlates with close rates. The same principle applies to capital raising.
What Investors Evaluate Beyond Metrics
Information accessibility. Can they get answers at 10pm when they are researching you?
Response speed. Do questions get answered in hours or weeks?
Process clarity. Is the data room organised or chaotic?
Friction level. How many emails does it take to access basic documents?
These operational signals communicate as much about your business as your pitch deck. Slow responses indicate poor systems. Poor systems indicate execution risk.
Investors pattern-match constantly. If you cannot manage a simple diligence process efficiently, how will you manage scaling operations?
The Netflix vs. Blockbuster Parallel
Netflix destroyed Blockbuster by making content access frictionless. On-demand. Immediate. No waiting.
Capital raising operates on the same principle. Investors want on-demand access to information. They want answers when they have time to evaluate, not when you have time to respond.
The Traditional (Broken) Model
Founder sends pitch deck. Investor requests additional information. Founder promises to "get back to them." Days pass. Weeks pass. Momentum dies.
This model assumes investors will wait. They will not wait. They have other options.
The Modern Model
Founder maintains always-on data room. Investor asks question. Answer exists in organised FAQ or document. Response time: minutes, not days.
This model assumes investors make decisions based on friction. They do.
The companies that treat information access like product design close deals faster.
Why LinkedIn Is Your Real Data Room
Investors are already connected with you on LinkedIn. They see what you share. They watch how you communicate. They evaluate credibility before they ever open your pitch deck.
If you share quarterly updates on LinkedIn, investors watch those. If you post customer case studies, investors read those. If you demonstrate thought leadership, investors notice.
This is the consideration phase of capital raising. Awareness leads to consideration, which leads to decision.
Most founders skip consideration entirely. They go from awareness (first meeting) to decision (expecting commitment). The consideration phase is where investors form opinions.
What the Consideration Phase Requires
Consistent visibility. Investors need to see your name multiple times. Research shows 11 exposures before recognition solidifies.
Social proof signals. Who else is engaging with you? What credible voices validate your work?
Accessible content. Videos, updates, posts that investors can consume asynchronously.
Demonstrated progress. Evidence that you are building momentum regardless of funding status.
The founders who understand this create content infrastructure that works while they sleep. The data room is not a folder of PDFs. The data room is your entire digital presence.
The Three-Hour Meeting That Should Take Thirty Minutes
Traditional capital raising involves multiple coffee meetings. Three hours. Four hours. Five hours of conversation to cover basic diligence questions.
This is inefficient for both parties.
Why Meetings Expand Unnecessarily
Lack of pre-meeting information. Investor arrives without context. First hour covers basics.
Repetitive questions. Multiple investors ask the same questions. Founder repeats answers.
No structured process. Conversation meanders without clear agenda.
Missing documentation. Questions arise that require follow-up emails.
Founders who pre-load information compress meeting time dramatically. The investor arrives informed. The meeting focuses on strategic questions, not basic facts.
The FAQ Document That Saves 100 Hours
Every question an investor asks more than twice should become a FAQ entry. Every document requested more than twice should live in an accessible data room.
This is not about secrecy. This is about efficiency.
What Belongs in the Pre-Meeting FAQ
Valuation methodology. How did you arrive at this number? What comps did you use?
Business model mechanics. Unit economics, CAC, LTV, retention metrics.
Go-to-market strategy. How do customers find you? What channels work?
Competitive landscape. Who else operates in this space? Why will you win?
Exit scenarios. What are realistic exit paths? What is the timeline?
Use of funds. How does this capital deployment correlate with growth drivers?
Risk mitigation. For technical businesses, what are the de-risking milestones?
When these answers exist in written form, investors can review them asynchronously. Meetings become strategic discussions instead of information exchanges.
The Second Thing That Kills Deals: Lawyers
Lawyers are necessary. Lawyers are expensive. Lawyers extend timelines.
The legal phase is where momentum dies for deals that survived the information phase.
Why Legal Kills Deals
Misaligned incentives. Lawyers get paid by the hour. Speed is not their priority.
Risk aversion. Lawyers focus on protecting downside, not enabling upside.
Term sheet complexity. Simple deals become complex through negotiation creep.
Due diligence expansion. Every answer generates three more questions.
Founders cannot eliminate lawyers from capital raising. But founders can reduce the friction lawyers create.
How to Minimise Legal Friction
The key is preparation. The more organised your information before legal diligence begins, the faster lawyers can work.
Legal Readiness Checklist
Clean cap table. Current shareholder register with no disputes or ambiguities.
Documented IP ownership. Clear assignment of intellectual property from founders and employees.
Employee agreements. Standard contracts with proper confidentiality and IP clauses.
Financial statements. Audited or reviewed financials, not just management accounts.
Compliance documentation. Proof of regulatory compliance where applicable.
Material contracts. Key customer and supplier agreements accessible and summarised.
Board minutes. Documented decisions for major business actions.
When lawyers request these documents and receive them within hours, the process compresses. When lawyers request these documents and receive them over weeks, the process expands.
The "Always-On" Infrastructure Model
The companies that close capital fastest operate with always-on infrastructure. Information is accessible 24/7. Questions get answered immediately. Friction is minimised at every touchpoint.
This requires different thinking about capital raising. It is not an event. It is a continuous process.
What Always-On Infrastructure Looks Like
Public data room. Core documents (pitch deck, one-pager, FAQ) accessible via link with no permission gates.
Private data room. Sensitive financials and legal documents accessible to qualified investors with tracking.
Update cadence. Monthly or quarterly updates sent proactively to investor pipeline, not just current shareholders.
Video content. Founder explaining business model, customer stories, product demos. Investors can watch asynchronously.
LinkedIn presence. Regular posts demonstrating progress, thought leadership, and market understanding.
This infrastructure works while you build the business. It nurtures the consideration phase without requiring constant founder attention.
The Competitive Dynamics Nobody Explains
When investors evaluate your opportunity, they compare you to other deals on factors beyond your pitch.
Responsiveness is one of those factors. Organisation is another. Professionalism is another.
Two companies with identical metrics will have different close rates if one has frictionless information access and the other requires chasing.
What Investors Compare
Speed to answer. Which founder responds in hours vs. days?
Information completeness. Which founder anticipated questions vs. reacts to them?
Process maturity. Which founder has systems vs. ad-hoc chaos?
Execution signals. Which founder demonstrates operational excellence vs. scrappiness?
The company that scores higher on operational efficiency often wins the capital, even with slightly weaker metrics.
Why This Matters More in 2026
The capital raising environment in 2026 is fundamentally different from 2020-2021. Deal counts are down. Investor selectivity is up. Competition for attention is intense.
Seed to Series A graduation rates have collapsed to 15.5%. Investors are funding fewer companies with higher bars for quality.
In this environment, operational friction becomes a disqualifying factor. Investors will not wait for slow responders when other opportunities provide immediate access.
The New Bar for Fundability
Metric excellence. Strong unit economics, capital efficiency, growth trajectory.
Operational excellence. Fast responses, organised data, professional process.
Strategic clarity. Clear articulation of value proposition, competitive moat, and path to exit.
Founders who meet only the first criterion will struggle. Founders who meet all three will close deals.
The Practical Implementation Guide
Building always-on infrastructure requires upfront work but saves hundreds of hours during active fundraising.
Month 1: Build the Foundation
Create comprehensive FAQ document. Organise data room with clear folder structure. Draft monthly update template.
Month 2: Automate Distribution
Set up investor CRM or simple tracking spreadsheet. Schedule monthly update distribution. Create LinkedIn content calendar.
Month 3: Refine Based on Patterns
Track which questions get asked repeatedly. Convert those into FAQ entries. Identify which documents get requested most. Make those most accessible.
This three-month investment compresses the eventual fundraising timeline from 9-12 months to 4-6 months.
What Investors Wish Founders Knew
After facilitating thousands of capital raising processes, the pattern is clear. Investors wish founders understood that deal momentum is fragile.
Every delay is a decision point. Continue pursuing this opportunity or allocate attention elsewhere?
Investors will not tell you they lost interest because you were slow to respond. They will simply stop responding. The deal dies quietly.
The Silent Signals
Response times lengthen. Investor takes days to respond instead of hours.
Meeting availability decreases. Investor is "busy" when you try to schedule follow-up.
Enthusiasm language changes. "Interesting" replaces "excited" in emails.
Decision timeline extends. "Need to discuss with partners" becomes permanent holding pattern.
These signals indicate the deal is dying. The cause is usually operational friction, not business quality.
The Two-Week Response Test
Run this diagnostic. Send your pitch deck and data room link to a trusted advisor. Ask them to act as an investor conducting diligence.
Track how long it takes to get answers to basic questions. If anything takes more than 48 hours, you have friction that will kill real deals.
What Should Be Instant
Access to pitch deck, one-pager, and executive summary. Access to FAQ document. Access to founder background and team bios.
What Should Take Less Than 24 Hours
Answers to business model questions. Clarification on metrics or traction. Introduction to key team members.
What Should Take Less Than 72 Hours
Access to detailed financials (with NDA). Access to customer references. Access to technical documentation for deep tech.
If your infrastructure cannot support these timelines, fix it before you start fundraising.
The Implication for Australian Founders
Australian deal flow is down 47% year-over-year. Investors have more options than ever despite lower overall activity. This is because capital is concentrating in fewer, higher-quality deals.
In this environment, operational excellence is table stakes. The days of raising capital on a napkin sketch are over.
The founders who build professional capital raising infrastructure before they need it will close deals faster and at better terms.
The founders who treat capital raising as an ad-hoc process will face extended timelines, lower conversion rates, and term sheet fatigue.
The market has already separated into these categories. The only question is which one you are in.
