After the funding: why 60% of funded SMEs fail to meet their growth targets

Financing is a necessary but not sufficient condition. Every year in Europe, hundreds of SMEs obtain bank or private equity financing with clear ambitions: doubling revenue, conquering a new market, recruiting a leadership team, launching a new product. Twelve to eighteen months later, half of them have not met their targets. Not for lack of money. For lack of execution.

The execution gap

Banks and investment funds are excellent at their role: analysing a file, structuring a financing, managing a portfolio. What they structurally do not do is accompany operational execution. The board meets once a quarter. Reporting is financial. And in between, the executive is alone facing the hardest decisions: hiring the right commercial director, choosing between two acquisition targets, managing an IT crisis in the middle of growth.

What funded organisations underestimate

• The speed at which priorities change after a financing
• The need for leadership recruitment in the first 90 days
• The pressure on IT systems that cannot sustain growth
• The compliance obligations that emerge with scale
• The complexity of the first transformative acquisition

The role of the operating partner

An operating partner is not a consultant. It is someone who has already lived through the situation you are facing, who can share a perspective from the inside, who can make decisions with you and not just deliver a recommendation. In the 18 months following a financing, having an operational operating partner on critical issues is often the difference between meeting your targets and missing them.