What it really takes to close a funding round 

The press release makes fundraising look deceptively simple.

The founder raises the money. The announcement goes out. Everyone celebrates.

What we rarely see is everything that came before it.

Months of investor conversations. Due diligence. Introductions that go nowhere. Promising deals that fall apart. Financial models being revisited. Commercial opportunities that still need attention. Investors waiting for other investors. The pressure of keeping the business moving while trying to close the round.

During a recent Focused Founders workshop, Dr Georgia Fleet, co-founder and CEO of Zonova, and Verity Baldry, angel investor with Angel Academe, shared what it really took to get Zonova’s seed round over the line.

Georgia is a materials scientist by background and co-founded Zonova after completing her PhD. The company is developing technology designed to help reduce infections associated with medical devices by embedding an additive into plastics that creates a protective antibacterial surface.

Verity has spent much of her career working in startups and now invests in early-stage businesses, with a particular interest in backing female founders. She had already invested in Zonova before the seed round and was closely involved as the company navigated what became a complicated fundraising journey. 

Their story was valuable precisely because it was not neat.

It showed that closing a funding round is not simply about pitching well enough.

It is about building relationships, creating confidence, keeping the company moving, managing due diligence, knowing when to walk away and being flexible enough to change the plan when circumstances change.

Fundraising is relationship-building, not simply pitching

Georgia began the seed round aiming to raise £1.7 million to create around 18 to 24 months of runway, make key R&D and operational hires, and allow her to spend more time driving the commercial side of the business. 

Finding investors was not easy.

The team used existing angels, warm introductions, investor portals, conferences, pitching competitions and every credible opportunity they could find to get Zonova in front of potential backers. 

But Georgia was clear that, for angels particularly, the process was about more than presenting a strong deck.

It was about relationships.

Investors may be working with a founder for years. They need to believe in the opportunity, but they also need confidence in the person building it.

Verity’s own involvement illustrated that. She had backed Georgia at pre-seed because she believed both in what Zonova was trying to achieve and in Georgia’s focus as a founder. When the new round opened, she then helped bring the opportunity to the wider Angel Academe network. 

For founders, that changes the way fundraising should be viewed.

A pitch may start the conversation.

A relationship helps carry it through the months that follow.

Investors may need to encounter your business several times

One of the most interesting insights came towards the end of the workshop.

A fund that eventually became important to Zonova’s round had not simply seen the deck once and decided to invest.

Georgia had crossed their radar several times.

There had been an initial approach, another introduction, conversations through Angel Academe and further follow-up. The first contact did not immediately lead anywhere.

Then the business continued to develop.

New evidence appeared. Team capability improved. Commercial progress continued. Other investors became involved.

Eventually, the opportunity looked different.

Verity reflected that she had previously imagined fund investment as a fairly linear process: submit the deck, move through investment committee stages and receive a decision.

The reality she observed was much more circular.

Confidence accumulated.

That led to a useful piece of advice for founders: do not assume that an early “not now” always means “never”.

Keep the right investors aware of the business, and when something meaningful changes, tell them. 

Keep building the business while you raise

The difficulty is that fundraising can become a full-time job.

Georgia was pitching, networking, handling due diligence and managing investor conversations while still running Zonova.

At points, she was also involved in lab work.

Yet continuing to move the underlying business forward became one of the things that strengthened the investment case.

Verity remembered Zonova returning to Angel Academe with updates and seemingly having another piece of evidence each time: new recognition, stronger commercial interest or further validation.

That mattered because investors were not simply assessing the version of the company they first saw.

They were watching what happened next.

For founders, this creates a difficult balance.

The fundraise needs attention, but the business cannot stand still while money is being raised.

Commercial progress can become part of the fundraising strategy itself.

A new customer conversation, significant hire, partnership, award or other credible milestone may give an undecided investor a new reason to reconsider.

Due diligence readiness can help maintain momentum

Interest is only one part of the process.

Investors need enough information to satisfy themselves that the opportunity stands up to scrutiny.

That can involve financials, legal documentation, company structure, commercial evidence, forecasts, ownership and the assumptions behind the round.

Verity explained that Angel Academe had undertaken due diligence relatively early and then remained involved while the wider round developed.

She also described another investment where an angel network had done much of the legal and diligence work before a VC arrived. Because the due diligence pack and paperwork were already there, that investor was able to pick up the opportunity much closer to the finishing line. 

That is a useful lesson for founders.

Good documentation does not make an unconvincing business investible.

But poor organisation can make a credible company much harder to invest in.

When the right investor appears, you want the conversation to move forwards rather than stall because essential information is missing.

The right deal matters more than any deal

The most difficult point in Zonova’s round came after around five or six months of work with a potential lead investor.

There had been extensive due diligence and enough progress for the team to believe this investor might set the terms and help unlock the rest of the round.

Then came a site visit.

Georgia and her co-founder left the meeting feeling that something was wrong.

A subsequent conversation confirmed it.

The potential investor wanted fundamental changes to the business.

She said no.

After months of work, Zonova walked away from a potential lead investor rather than accept changes that did not feel right for the company. 

That decision was painful.

Georgia described the frustration of feeling as though six months had been wasted.

But Verity strongly supported the decision.

From an existing investor’s perspective, closing the round was not worth accepting terms that could damage the company or give away inappropriate levels of control.

There is a useful distinction here for founders.

The goal is not to secure a deal.

The goal is to secure the right capital, from the right investors, on terms that still allow you to build the business you intended to build.

Good angels can provide much more than cash

What happened after that deal fell apart also showed the value a supportive investor can bring.

Georgia contacted the board and existing backers.

Instead of responding with panic, her investors helped her process what had happened and work out what came next.

Verity described that as an important difference with angel investing.

The cheque is only one part of the relationship.

Strong angels can bring belief, experience, introductions, negotiation support, perspective and practical help when something goes wrong.

For a founder under pressure, that can be decisive.

There are points during a long raise when exhaustion or fear can make an unattractive deal begin to look tempting simply because it would bring the process to an end.

Having investors around you who are prepared to say, “This is difficult, but this is not the right deal,” can protect the company as well as the founder. 

When the plan stops working, change the plan

After the expected lead investor disappeared, Georgia did not simply restart the same strategy.

She sat down with existing supporters and returned to a more fundamental question:

What does Zonova actually need to reach its next milestone?

The original target was £1.7 million.

The team revisited the financial model and explored whether £1 million could get Zonova to the next meaningful point, with greater emphasis on generating revenue and progressing commercial opportunities.

That would also allow Georgia to redirect some of the time being consumed by fundraising back into the company.

The plan changed.

And crucially, the new plan was communicated clearly to existing and potential investors. 

For founders, this is an important distinction.

Being committed to the goal does not mean being committed to exactly the same funding plan forever.

If market conditions change, an investor disappears or the company has moved forward, it may be sensible to reopen the financial model and ask:

What is the next milestone?

How much capital do we genuinely need to reach it?

Is there another credible route?

Flexibility is not the same as losing discipline.

Sometimes it is what gets the round moving again.

A lead investor can unlock everyone waiting behind them

One of Zonova’s biggest challenges was not a lack of interest.

It was that several investors were waiting.

Some were comfortable with the company but wanted to see a lead investor first.

They wanted somebody to help establish the valuation, agree the terms and give the round greater structure.

Eventually, Angel Academe helped do exactly that.

With a lead, agreed terms and a closing date in place, other investors had something concrete to work around.

Georgia explained that this helped precipitate further commitments. 

This is useful when a founder feels surrounded by positive conversations that are not becoming cheques.

Ask what is actually missing.

Are investors waiting for more commercial validation?

A lead?

A valuation?

Due diligence?

A specific milestone?

Understanding the blocker can be more valuable than simply arranging another ten investor calls.

Closing a funding round does not always mean one close

The round also challenged another assumption.

Founders often imagine a funding round as one finish line.

Everything builds towards a closing date, everyone signs and the money arrives.

Zonova’s experience was much less tidy.

Different investors had different requirements and timelines, so the company ultimately completed the round through a series of closes.

There was an earlier advance subscription element, with AA initially leading the first close before the process was subsequently taken over by THENA Capital. This was followed by a January close, another close around the end of the financial year, and later activity as further funds completed their processes. 

Hatty described it during the workshop as a “massive game of Tetris”.

That captures the reality well.

Cash could come into the business while other parts of the raise continued.

This structure also allowed different investors to participate when their own processes permitted.

The broader lesson is that founders should not assume there is only one possible route to “closed”.

The structure may need to reflect the investors involved and the needs of the business. 

Keep the business visible while the round develops

Zonova also treated investor communication as an ongoing process rather than a sequence of disconnected pitches.

Georgia used a system to track conversations and keep on top of investors who had expressed interest.

Updates were shared.

A community newsletter helped maintain contact.

And Georgia remained highly visible through events, networking, pitching and LinkedIn.

She said one piece of feedback she repeatedly received was that people could not stop seeing her in their LinkedIn feed.

That visibility helped keep Zonova front of mind. 

The lesson is not that founders should create noise for the sake of it.

Visibility works best when there is genuine progress behind it.

A useful investor update might include a significant commercial conversation, a strong new hire, regulatory or product progress, external recognition or another development that materially strengthens the opportunity.

That gives investors a reason to look again.

Manage investor relationships as a pipeline

There is also a practical discipline underneath fundraising.

After dozens of introductions and pitches, it becomes very difficult to remember who said what, when to follow up and where the genuine interest lies.

Georgia used Airtable to track investor conversations and updates.

That helped the team see where each relationship stood and who had not been contacted recently. 

The system itself is less important than the habit.

A founder raising capital can benefit from knowing:

who has received the deck, who has taken a meeting, what concerns have been raised, what they are waiting for and when there will next be something meaningful to share.

This is not about turning investor relationships into impersonal CRM entries.

It is about making sure valuable conversations do not disappear because the founder is trying to remember everything while running the company.

Resilience includes protecting your own judgement

There was another part of Georgia’s story that deserves more attention than it usually gets in fundraising advice.

She became exhausted.

The round had been running for months. Investor discussions, business operations and commercial opportunities were all competing for attention.

Then a previously booked two-week holiday arrived.

Georgia initially saw the timing as inconvenient.

In hindsight, she regarded it as a “lifesaver”.

She realised that exhaustion changes the way founders negotiate.

The more tired she became, the more tempting it was to agree to terms simply because she wanted the process to end.

After taking some time away, she returned with more energy to complete the final stages. 

Hatty highlighted the broader lesson during the workshop.

Managing your energy is part of resilience.

It can also be part of responsible decision-making.

When the future ownership and control of your business is being negotiated, protecting your ability to think clearly matters.

There is a lesson here for investors too

The workshop deliberately looked at the round from both sides.

Verity helped show just how much can be happening behind the scenes while a founder wonders why an investor is taking so long.

There may be a deal team working through due diligence.

Individual angels need to satisfy themselves before investing their own money.

Legal paperwork needs to work for multiple parties.

Funds may have several deals competing for attention at the same time.

That does not make delays easy for a founder, but understanding the mechanics can make them less mysterious.

There was also a more challenging lesson.

Where an investor has a fundamental objection to the structure, leadership or future direction of the business, raising that concern early matters.

Allowing a founder to spend months progressing through diligence only to surface a foreseeable deal-breaker at the end can consume valuable runway and management time.

Good investment behaviour includes being clear about fundamental concerns while there is still time for the founder to act on them.

The best outcome can look very different from the original plan

Perhaps the most striking part of Zonova’s story is where it ended.

Georgia had initially planned to raise £1.7 million.

After the difficult investor experience, the team reduced the target to £1 million and concentrated on the next milestone.

Ultimately, the round developed again.

Zonova went on to close significantly more investment than originally planned, alongside further matched funding, and Georgia described the final investor relationships and terms as much better for the business. 

That outcome would have been impossible to predict at the point when the expected lead investor disappeared.

Which is exactly why the story matters.

Fundraising is rarely linear.

The founder needs a strategy, but also enough flexibility to respond when reality changes.

Relationships matter.

Commercial progress matters.

Preparation matters.

Terms matter.

So does knowing when to walk away.

And when the process becomes exhausting, the people around the founder can matter as much as the money they ultimately invest.

Closing a funding round is not simply about reaching the point where cash arrives in the bank.

It is about getting the business to the next stage without losing sight of what you are trying to build in the first place.

Preparing to raise?

If you are preparing for an equity raise and want structured support getting ready for investor conversations, Focused For Business’ 90 Days to Equity Investment Programme is a useful next step.

The programme is for founders preparing to raise their first or second equity funding round who have an MVP or working product and early customers, pilots or evidence of traction and are looking to raise between £100k and £1m.
During the programme, you’ll strengthen your proposition and evidence, get your deck, forecasts and valuation right, and identify the right investors for your startup. You’ll also get input from experienced mentors who will challenge your thinking and help prepare you for the questions investors are likely to ask.

Watch the 90 Days to Equity Investment Programme video to see how the programme works.

FAQs – Closing a funding round