Approaching us. You can make contact in the first instance through our website. Send us a brief outline of your company and your business plan. If you know us, any of our portfolio companies, or someone who can make an introduction to us, even better.
An initial chat. After reviewing your proposal, we’ll usually arrange for a telephone or face-to-face conversation. We want to get to know you and your team and it’s a good opportunity for you to appraise us. We’ll want to discuss the market with you, share some of our thoughts and try and understand your ambitions and plans.
Presenting your plan. If we like you and you like us, we will normally ask you to present your business plan to our investment team. This is typically a short presentation but with a fuller, two-way follow-on discussion. We’ll consider matters and if we both want to take things further we’ll give you an indicative ‘Heads of Terms’.
Due Diligence. Due diligence shouldn’t be too time-consuming but it’s important for you and us that we get it right. We’ll want to have a close look at all your financial forecasts and test some of the assumptions in your business plan. We’ll probably talk to some of your vendors, partners and customers; we have an extensive network of contacts so this won’t come across as too intrusive – chances are we both know the same people. We’ll come out and spend some time with you, complete a legal and technical audit and we’re done.
Final proposal. Once all terms are agreed, we’ll submit a formal proposal to the Burlywood Capital board. Upon making a decision, we’ll finalise terms and have the money sent over to your bank account.
Monitoring our investment. We will almost certainly want a seat on your board. We’ll help you build top class corporate governance standards, best-in-class financial reporting procedures and we’ll help, assist, make introductions, exploit our network, introduce you to other portfolio companies and generally work side-by-side as a member of your team.