Every funder says they look at the whole business. In practice, the first pass takes about eleven minutes and rests on four numbers. None of them are in your deck.
The four numbers
Trailing revenue over the last six months, month by month, not averaged. Averaging hides the thing we are looking for, which is the shape of the curve rather than its height.
A flat $80k a month is easier to fund than a spiky $120k. Predictability is the product.
Second, refund and chargeback rate. Third, customer concentration — one client at forty per cent of revenue is a different risk to forty clients at one per cent. Fourth, how long it takes you to pay your own suppliers.
Connect the sales platform before you apply — it removes a day.
Do not smooth the numbers. We can see the raw feed anyway.
Tell us about the bad month. Unexplained dips cost more than explained ones.
The rest — the deck, the brand, the plan for next year — matters once the four numbers clear. It is not that we do not care. It is that the numbers decide whether there is a conversation at all.
