The plan, made fundable
Written to the standard investors actually
fund: uses, sequence, returns. Most plans
are ambitions. Investors pay for arithmetic.
Growth Capital
Growth capital for profitable
companies whose plans outgrew
the balance sheet.
Minority capital raised on your terms. And where the plan crosses
borders, the entry built by the same firm: entity, banking, team,
market. By introduction. In confidence.
Growth capital has been colonised by
the venture industry, and profitable
companies keep wandering into rooms
built for burn rates.
This mandate is for the other kind of company:
proven, earning, ready.
We write the plan to the standard investors fund, run the right
capital in competition, negotiate the terms whole, and close. Then,
where the plan crosses borders, we build the entry ourselves:
entity, banking, regulatory, team.
The mandate suits founder-held and family-held companies that
are profitable, proven at home, and holding a plan that capital
genuinely unlocks. Where the ambition is international, so are we.
The raise takes several forms.
New markets
International expansion funded and then built: the entity, the banking, the regulatory setup, and the team, in the jurisdiction the plan names.
Capacity
The order book outruns the plant, the fleet, or the people. Capital converts demand you already have into revenue you cannot yet serve.
The team ahead of the curve
Senior hires and infrastructure bought before the growth arrives, not after it breaks something.
The balance sheet for bigger contracts
Larger customers diligence your balance sheet before they sign. Capital that wins the tenders you were too small to hold.
Acquisitive growth
A bolt-on or two alongside the organic plan. Where it becomes a programme, that is Consolidation, and we will say so.
The process.
Six phases, the same discipline every time.
Most raises run four to seven months from the first conversation to settlement.
I
Screening
The conversation first, under NDA if you prefer. The company, the
plan, and whether capital is actually the constraint. If it is something
else, we say so.
II
The plan
The growth plan stress-tested and written to institutional standard: what the money does, in what order, and what it returns. Investors fund arithmetic, not ambition. The table below is run here, with your numbers.
III
Preparation
Financials normalised, materials built, the data room assembled. Profitable companies raise on their numbers; our work is making the numbers legible and the story defensible.
IV
Market
The right capital approached directly and in confidence: growth
funds, family offices, strategics, principals. The name follows a
signed NDA. Competition sets the price and the terms.
V
Terms & documentation
Valuation, governance, preferences, and exit mechanics negotiated as one instrument. Dilution is the visible cost; the terms are the real one.
VI
Close & the build
Funds settle and the plan begins. Where it crosses borders, the firm
builds the entry itself, so the capital starts working the month it
lands.
The companies that raise best do not need the money next quarter. Raise from strength, on a plan, and the terms follow. Raise from need, and the terms find you.
The capital funds the plan. The firm builds it.
Growth capital
minority, sized to the plan
The company
today
profitable, proven,
capacity-bound
The build
markets, capacity,
team
The company
at scale
the same owners
in control
Ladd & Co.
the raise and the build, one mandate
Entity, banking, regulatory, and team,
delivered in the jurisdictions the plan names.
Most advisors leave at the wire transfer. The funded plan still has to be executed, and its hardest parts, the market entry, the structure, the first hires abroad, are exactly the firm's trade.
Why Owners Engage Us
The investor universe
Growth funds, family offices, strategics, and private principals, reached directly through nine offices and put in competition on your terms.
The raise and the build
Where the plan crosses borders, the firm delivers the entry itself: entity, banking, regulatory, team. The capital funds the plan; we execute it.
On the company's side
We act for the company and its owners,
never for the capital. Valuation, governance,
preferences, and exit mechanics negotiated
as one instrument.
Senior on the mandate
The people you meet are the people who run the process. Nothing is handed down.
Discretion, engineered
Blind profiles, staged disclosure, an NDA before the name. A raise that leaks reads as weakness, even when it is strength.
The arithmetic.
Why owners take dilution, in one table. An illustration: a company earning US$4m, worth around US$30m today, weighing a US$12m raise for 25 percent. Every number is an assumption; the plan phase runs yours.
Grow on cash flow
Take growth capital
Ownership
Grow on cash flow
100 percent
Take growth capital
75 percent
Capital to deploy
Grow on cash flow
What the company spares, year by year
Take growth capital
US$12m, committed on day one
Five years on
Grow on cash flow
US$6m of profit, around US$45m of value
Take growth capital
US$12m of profit at a stronger multiple, around US$108m
Your stake
Grow on cash flow
US$45m
Take growth capital
US$81m
The trade
Grow on cash flow
All of the smaller outcome
Take growth capital
Three quarters of the much larger one
Illustrative and gross of tax, fees, and costs. If your figures say organic wins, we will show you that table instead.
The capital commonly funds: market entry / capacity & fleet / senior team / product & platform / bolt-on acquisitions / working capital for larger contracts
What we act on.
The firm acts for profitable companies, proven in their home market, with a plan that capital genuinely unlocks.
Typically founder-held or family-held, and typically with a cross-border dimension in the ambition. Venture-stage losses are a different market, and mostly not ours.
We act for the company and its owners, never for the capital providers. Terms are set out plainly in the Engagement Agreement before any work begins.
Asked before most mandates.
How much should we raise?
What the plan needs, plus a margin for the plan being wrong, and
no more. The number falls out of the arithmetic, not the market’s
appetite.
What will it cost us in ownership?
Dilution is the visible cost, and the table above is the honest way to
weigh it: less of much more usually beats all of less. Not always,
and if your numbers say organic wins, we will say so before you sell
a share.
Do we have to give up control?
No. Growth capital is minority by design. What investors reasonably
ask for is governance, usually a board seat, information rights, and
defined consent matters, and we negotiate those boundaries as
hard as the valuation.
Who are the investors?
Growth funds, family offices, strategics, and private principals, and
they are not interchangeable. We choose for how they behave
when a quarter goes sideways, not how they present when
everything is going up.
What if we are not ready yet?
Then the mandate starts earlier. Some companies engage us a year out, to build the plan, clean the numbers, and choose the moment.
What does it cost?
The commercial terms are set out plainly in the Engagement
Agreement before any work begins, with the substance of our fee
settled at completion, alongside the capital. There are no surprises
in our paperwork. You should expect none in your investor’s.
No public references.
The firm does not name clients, counterparties, or terms.
Not in marketing, not in conversation, not after the fact. The owners
best placed to vouch for the work are the reason we will not ask
them to. If discretion matters to you while you raise, it should
matter to the firm that carries your name into the market.
Adjacent to this mandate.
Ready to scale, this year or next.
Every mandate begins with a conversation. Outline the company
and the plan in confidence. If we are the right firm for it, we will say
how we would run the raise and the build. If we are not, we will say
that too. Request an Introduction, in confidence. No obligation. An
NDA is available before any detail is shared.