What we learned raising ₹2,500 Cr across 150 proposals

After 150+ corporate-finance mandates and ₹2,500 crore raised across them, the patterns are clear. The proposals that close in 30 days look materially different from the proposals that drag for nine months. Three things separate them.

1. Banks don’t fund what they can’t model

The single biggest delay in corporate finance is the bank’s credit team building a financial model from your scattered numbers. If you hand them a model that they can simply review and stress-test, you compress weeks out of the timeline.

Our standard proposal package includes:

• A three-statement projection model with sensitivities pre-built
• Trailing twelve months of actuals reconciled to GSTR returns
• Working capital cycle analysis with comparison to industry medians
• A debt-service coverage ratio table at multiple scenarios

This is not optional. Proposals without a defensible financial model attract a standardized list of clarifications that adds 3–6 weeks to every approval.

2. The right bank for the right structure

Not every bank is appropriate for every facility. Our 32+ partner network exists precisely because a working capital request that fits Bank A’s appetite will be dead on arrival at Bank B — even with identical numbers.

Heuristics from 150 proposals:

• Project finance for builders: regional private banks and specific NBFCs — nationalized banks rarely close inside 90 days
• Working capital for services firms: private banks with strong fintech rails outperform on speed
• LRD against rental: certain co-operative banks actually offer the best yields if structured properly
• Foreign subsidiary capitalization: international banks with India relationships, full stop

3. Documentation in parallel, not in sequence

The mistake we see again and again: getting in-principle approval, then starting documentation. The faster mandates run documentation in parallel with credit appraisal — vetted templates, pre-collected annexures, ready-to-sign formats.

Sequential documentation costs you 4–8 weeks. Parallel documentation costs nothing if you have a partner who’s done it before.

A 95% success rate is not luck. It’s the result of refusing to submit proposals that aren’t bank-ready — and that discipline is the actual product.

What this means for you

If you’re raising debt for a real project — growth capital, acquisition, working capital expansion, project finance — and you’re seeing proposal drag, the issue is rarely the bank. The issue is almost always that the proposal isn’t structured to match the bank’s underwriting model.

Our financing-support practice does precisely this work. If you have a live mandate or are scoping one, the conversation is best had over a call.