Allocation Is the Conclusion; the Full Picture Is the Material

How does a deal that passed the three screens get handed to an investor? Our practice is one line: give the full picture, not just the allocation. Round structure, secondary arrangements, explained fully in one go. Whatever can be said, we say. Whatever cannot, we explain why not. This is the floor, not a bonus.

Let us state the view first. Quoting only the allocation makes the judgement for him. Laying the structure out hands the judgement back. Why? Because what an investor signs is a partnership, not a scramble for stock. The logic of a scramble does not fit inside a partnership.

Giving only the allocation is a scarcity narrative: there is not much left, move fast, this chance will not come again. That script does push decisions along. But decisions made under pressure are not good ones. Whoever signs under pressure will sooner or later remember the moment he was pushed. Trust is discounted at that moment. You can push once. You cannot push twice.

The Hardest Part of the Full Picture Is the Secondary

Giving the full picture means handing over the material for a judgement. Why this round is being raised, how the structure was designed, where the secondary shares come from, why someone is selling, how the price formed — every line laid out. Only a judgement a person makes himself survives volatility: no panic when the market turns cold, no complaint when the valuation is reset. A judgement made for someone else leaves nothing but blame when things go wrong.

The part most easily fudged is the secondary. Many treat a discount on secondary shares as a pricing question. We see it differently. It is stuck in two places: the existing shareholders hold pre-emption rights, and the controlling shareholder can simply decline to cooperate. Two gates. If one stays shut, no discount is deep enough to move the shares. In other words, on secondary you ask about consent first, not price. Settle the people, then discuss the price.

Should these details be told at the referral stage? Yes. Eight or nine out of ten questions investors come back with later come from three places: the round, the secondary, the price. Say them up front and the account reconciles. Does saying too much scare people off? No. Evidence assembled before launch costs about nothing. Patch it after launch and the only thing left to change is the timetable.

The Full Picture Is for Whoever Is Willing to Price

Until someone prices it, everyone waits. Whoever moves first carries the risk of a wrong price alone. The first duty in investing is really safety, not odds. So we do not expect to convince a roomful of people. In any round, only one or two firms are truly willing to price. Find him and the round unlocks.

The lead investor is exactly the one who wants the full picture. What he cares about is not how much allocation is left, but whether there is a card at this table he has not seen. Give him an allocation and he will wait a while longer. Give him the structure and he may move. Once the first shot is fired, everyone else's question shifts from whether it is worth it to whether there is any left. The difference is not persuasion. It is how complete the material is.

What we hand over is a diligence-grade material library: the underlying logic, interview notes, operating data, complete and transparent and highly verifiable. It is often two or three times thicker than a roadshow deck. The extra part is exactly the part that gets asked about six months later. In other words, we finish the later questions and answers in advance. Do it once up front and you save three rounds.

Proportion Is Part of the Full Picture

A full picture does not mean overstating. Our old rule: do not call every company number one. In a winner-takes-all field, argue why it is first. Where it is not winner-takes-all, say clearly where it sits in the top tier. Proportion is not modesty. It is accuracy. The fuller you talk, the less anyone believes you. Talk accurately and the referral carries weight.

Where does the confidence come from? From putting in our own money. Glacier Capital insists on co-investing its own capital in the projects it serves deeply. Without your own money in, it is hard to look at a project seriously; from a transaction-only view you see less, and the outlook turns short. After co-investing, the full picture is first of all for ourselves. What we hand over, we have signed our own name to.

So we are in no hurry to hand it over. If the window has not opened, we will sit on the bench with a company for ten months and work these accounts out line by line. But once the window opens, the whole picture has to go on the table as a set. It cannot be assembled on the spot. So far, what this buys is not one closing. It is whether a firm is willing to look at the next deal. Giving the full picture takes confidence, and confidence comes from looking early. How early? Get to know them before the round opens.