Independent sponsors raise equity capital on a deal-by-deal basis after identifying a specific acquisition target and signing a letter of intent. The fundraising process typically takes 60 to 90 days and involves outreach to pre-existing investor relationships: family offices, high-net-worth individuals, co-investment groups like CapitalPad, and institutional co-investors. Most raises fall in the $2M to $15M range.
That process sounds simple enough on paper. In practice, raising capital is the single hardest part of the independent sponsor model. You’re asking investors to commit real money to a specific deal on a compressed timeline, often before you have a track record in the structure. If the equity doesn’t come together before the LOI expires, you lose the deal and everything you invested in sourcing it.
This guide covers the fundraising process in the order it actually ha