Self-funded deal with significant equity raise

searcher profile

December 04, 2025

by a searcher from Northwestern University in Chicago, IL, USA

Hi, I just found a company with >2.5M EBITDA selling for 10M, and it is a perfect fit for my background. I have been planning to buy with an SBA loan and have a relatively small equity raise to cover the SBA's requirements. I have probably built enough connections with investors to raise the extra equity, but I for most of my investors, with a larger fund raise they will want traditional search terms. Has anyone raised significant equity from a large self-funded deal like this? Were you able to negotiate better-than-traditional terms with the deal in hand?
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Reply by a lender
from Cornell University in Los Angeles, CA, USA
Hi ^redacted‌, nice to meet you. If the business is selling for $10M with $2.5M EBITDA, SBA lenders will still expect you to show 5-10% post-close liquidity, even investors covering the majority of the equity. Bigger raises often mean tighter investor terms, but a signed LOI and strong lender interest give you leverage to negotiate better economics. It should be noted that this will go into pari passu financing and lenders typically cap total debt between $7.5M to $8M. We have a lot of experience financing larger self-funded acquisitions via the SBA. If you ever need help talking through a deal, I am happy to help. We work with all the major SBA lenders. The bank pays us after your loan closes, so this is a 100% free service for you. You can email me directly at redacted or schedule a meeting with me: https://cal.com/francodeguzman/30min. Look forward to chatting!
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Reply by a searcher
from University of Texas at Austin in Austin, TX, USA
It all depends on returns. Get it under LOI, get a debt term sheet, then you'll be able to draft an equity model that will inform how much equity you need to sell. If you can reasonably show 25%+ IRR at self-funded search percentages you can get those economics, but at a 5x multiple I expect you'll be closer to 40% ownership (DSCR, SBA limits, etc), somewhere between self-funded and traditional economics. Best of luck!
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