Structuring Your Business for Success

Structuring your business in a way that will last and building it to be one that can attract external investment or even sell for a meaningful sum requires more than belief.  It requires structure. Clarity. A plan. 

As financial planners, we often meet founders with fantastic ideas but limited visibility on how to turn early momentum into long-term value. Whether you’re looking for investment, scaling your team, or thinking ahead to an eventual exit, how you structure your business today sets the stage for the freedom and success you’ll experience tomorrow. 

From the investor’s perspective 

Matt Jellicoe, Co-founder and Investment Director at One Planet Capital, shares his experience on what founders should consider—whether they’re raising capital or navigating a successful exit. 

One Planet Capital is a climate change-focused venture capital and EIS firm investing in high-growth companies tackling the climate crisis. Founded and run by ex-entrepreneurs with exits in SaaS, digital marketing, and PE-backed businesses, they’ve seen the investment world from both sides of the table. 

‘If you are an entrepreneur and are thinking about raising capital, it is always worth taking a step back and thinking whether you are ‘investment ready.  

Seed investing can often be a case of ‘right time, right place’ for angels and VCs looking to invest so it is always important to be as prepared as possible when meeting either angels or VCs. For example, you need to have a good accountant in place and you should have SEIS/EIS advance assurance in place from HMRC (if you are seeking investment from an EIS manager). 

If you are a single company founder you might want to mitigate this with a skeleton management team (many investors won’t back single founders as it is perceived to be risky). Have you got professional investment grade decks for the new business? 

Think about setting up a basic data room with company documents, projections and so on. All of this will increase your chances of investment and avoid drop off from potential investors. Also get professional advice on how to protect your equity from the start in terms of anti-dilution clauses, founder-controlled equity and so on. Seedlegals is a good and cost-effective place to start. 

Thinking ahead to exit 

Racing ahead 7 years to a potential exit, this can also be both an amazing life event and a very stressful time. From personal experience it can be very tempting to exit a business when you can see an exit. M&A can often take years, and many attempts to sell businesses don’t work out the first time around. Think about how you want to be involved in the business post sale and incorporate things like exit acceleration clauses if the new environment doesn’t work out. 

It is worth evaluating your life goals at this stage – and engaging a good financial advisor early on. This is something that I regret not doing and only got around too much later. If you are lucky enough to get a meaningful exit, make sure you make time for good financial planning and have a structured life plan for your finances. You would be surprised how many entrepreneurs end up restarting ventures, partly because they did not have a clear vision around their finances the first time around. Often the skills of entrepreneurship and long-term financial planning do not correlate – this is a very common experience for many founders in our network.’ 

Great businesses are built with great intention

If you’re raising capital or contemplating a sale, don’t just think about the business. Think about you. 

What do you want – wealth, freedom, legacy, or all three? And what comes next? 

At First Wealth, we help entrepreneurs ensure their business success and personal finances work in harmony. That might mean: 

• Sensible equity structuring 

• Exit scenario modelling 

• Or simply stepping back and designing the life you want next 

If you’d like to learn more about One Planet Capital or how to structure your business for investment or exit, speak to your First Wealth adviser or reach us on 020 7467 2700 and hello@firstwealth.co.uk. 

This document is marketing material for a retail audience and does not constitute advice or recommendations. Past performance is not a guide to future performance and may not be repeated. The value of investments and the income from them may go down as well as up and investors may not get back the amount originally invested.