I want to tell you something that most financial advisors will not.
For close to a decade, I was the person on the other side of the table at a leading Indian venture debt fund — one that managed thousands of crores in capital and backed some of the country’s most recognised growth-stage companies. I read the financial files. I made the calls. And then I became a founder myself — building my own businesses, watching my own numbers get evaluated by people who think the way I used to think.
That experience on both sides is why I started Bebaak. And it is the source of what I am about to tell you — because I have never seen it written plainly anywhere else.
What a bank’s credit officer actually thinks in the first 90 seconds
When a bank’s credit officer receives your file, they do not read it. They scan it. In the first 90 seconds, they are looking for three numbers: DSCR, TOL/TNW, and current ratio. If any of these are visibly wrong — below 1.25 on DSCR, above 4x on TOL/TNW, below 1.1 on current ratio — the file goes into the “decline or query” pile immediately, and everything else you submitted is irrelevant.
The narrative on your business? The projections? The customer testimonials? None of it matters until those three numbers are in a zone that keeps the file in the “worth reading” pile.
I have seen brilliant businesses with genuine growth stories get declined because their DSCR was 0.98 — two percentage points below the threshold. And I have seen mediocre businesses with thin margins get approved because their ratios were clean and their file was well-organised. The story matters — but only after the numbers pass.
What an investor thinks in the first five minutes with your deck
When a VC or angel investor opens your financial model, they are not reading it. They are pressure-testing it. The first three questions in their head are:
Question 1: Does this person understand unit economics? Can they tell me their gross margin, their customer acquisition cost, and their payback period without looking it up? If the answer is no, the conversation is effectively over — even if the numbers are good.
Question 2: Is the revenue real or hoped-for? Investors discount projected revenue by a factor of 3–5x in their heads. They add back that discount when they see historical actuals that show a consistent growth pattern. Show me 24 months of actual revenue data before you show me projections.
Question 3: Does the founder know where the money went? Burn rate is easy to calculate. What matters is whether the founder can explain every significant cost decision and its expected return. A founder who says “marketing spend was high this quarter because we were testing CAC in two new channels and we now know which one works” is fundable. A founder who says “costs went up a bit” is not.
The three things that killed deals I saw from the investor side
1. Debtors that nobody could explain. If your balance sheet shows ₹2Cr in debtors outstanding for more than 90 days with no explanation, an investor or bank will assume the worst — that it is bad debt that has not been written off, or that the revenue was never real. Always have a written explanation of every debtor above 60 days.
2. Related party transactions without documentation. Loans to directors, purchases from promoter companies, rent paid to a family-owned property — these are not automatically disqualifying, but they must be documented, arm’s-length priced, and disclosed. Hidden related-party transactions are the single most common reason due diligence kills a deal that seemed done.
3. The founder who could not answer basic financial questions. “What is your gross margin?” “What is your net working capital cycle?” “What is your DSCR?” If a founder cannot answer these in a due diligence meeting — even approximately — it signals that finance is not being managed, it is just being filed. That is a fundability risk, not just a knowledge gap.
The honest answer to “how do I make my file fundable?”
The businesses that get funded — by banks and by investors — share one characteristic: their financial story is told before the question is asked. The good DSCR is explained. The debtor ageing is addressed. The related party transactions are disclosed and contextualised. The projections are grounded in historical actuals.
This does not happen by accident. It happens when someone — a CFO, a financial advisor, a co-pilot — sits with the business and prepares the file the way the decision-maker on the other side needs to receive it.
That is exactly what Bebaak does. I know what the person on the other side of the table is thinking — because I was that person. And now I work for the business owner sitting across from them.