How to Qualify for Completion Assurance Program™ Funding

Does your project qualify for In3 CAP funding?

For expedited project-related funding from In3 Capital Group partners, at these indicative terms (ask us for password), with no up-front fees, please review our basic requirements:

What will In3CAP fund? Infrastructure project equity or other non-M&A-type transactions (qualifying projects use funds to build, expand, or retrofit) with tranches or total funding of $25 million or more, almost anywhere, at any stage of readiness, in any supported sector (list).
Obtain a draft “Completion Assurance Guarantee” (CAG) or hire us to do that for you on a fee-for-service basis. CAGs do not need to cover the full amount of requested funding. 50-80% is ideal. Start by obtaining a “specimen” (sample) of a bank-involved CAG to get that language approved using handy guide (2-page PDF). Or, you can either
- Contact one of our Affiliates, each of whom receive specialized training in our systems.
- See if your project and team can qualify for In3’s Premium “Done For You” (DFY) services
Monthly draw schedule for the required funds and Letter of Intent for the CAG.

These 3 items comprise the preferred checkpoints, reached in roughly this sequence.

Synopsis version: To keep this simple, the above 3 key checkpoints (essentials 3-5, below) boil down to the following “secret sauce” to qualify for advantageous CAP project funding: 1. If there’s a basic fit for the funding we offer, get 2. CAG instrument “specimen”, based on our template, 3. Propose a monthly draw schedule (sample on pg. 3), and RWA letter from the guarantor’s bank.

Once accepted as “pre-qualified” we launch our rapid and quite forgiving Due Diligence to put a binding offer on the table, assuming your project’s proposal lines up with what we discover during our evaluation. The rest of this page provides further details of our requirements, summarized here.

Is there a basic fit? Check that your mid-market project fits our most basic criteria, using these Four Cornerstones. We can finance almost any new construction, retrofit or refurbishment, at any stage, anywhere, but note our minimums ($25 million per project or portfolio; $40m-50m+ ideally) and industry preferences.

Why CAP? Article about its purpose, goals, benefits and advantages, an important part of what makes us different from traditional project funders. Synopsis of the program. CAP is simply our fastest and most mutually advantageous approach to mid-market project finance in almost any market, sector, and state of readiness (including projects with additional pre-construction or development costs). It radically improves funding certainty and speed. It also solves four of the notorious problems with securing affordable “impact” capital (read more).

Missing the context or need a roadmap? See Complete Steps to Project Fundraising Success (these “essentials” are the initial 6 steps).

Summary and preview of CAP funding’s Six Essentials:

Project or Portfolio Name (describes type, size and location of project, ideally), Total Budget and funding requested in $ or € or some other currency
Uses of funds – categories and amounts / % for each category (sample format) and estimated unlevered project IRR.
NOTE: If you are unsure about best fit for your funding, use our onboarding system to send the above two items along with a project synopsis and any questions.
Proposed Financial (completion assurance) Guarantee type and verbiage using the appropriate template (to help decide)
CHECKPOINT 1: Send the proposed verbiage (item 3) along with items 1 & 2 for initial acceptance.
Proposed monthly drawdown schedule – example on pg 3 of this PDF
CHECKPOINT 2: Will our partner’s bank agree to the timing of draws? Once approved, 2 final steps, 5 and 6 below, launch our rapid due diligence:
Bank Letter — the issuing bank’s RWA letter or similar Letter of Intent using the appropriate MS Word template (click on link then scroll down to where it says “Guarantee Instrument Templates” to download the correct template).
Project Summary, executive information summary, or summary business plan, and support documents. That’s it!
RESULT: Enter our rapid Due Diligence leading to a binding offer, if all goes well.

To help you build a winning project funding proposal, use our Proposal Builder.

NOTE: If seeking venture capital, less than $25 million, M&A, funding for new tech commercialization, or other services, go here.
(Definition of key differences between venture and project finance here.)

These Six Essentials provide a streamlined and focused way to obtain a binding offer, a result of our rapid Due Diligence, using a proven process that requires ZERO UP-FRONT COMMITMENT.

For a technical synopsis of how CAP works (for bankers and others who want to know our protocol), see “Inception to Completion” overview (1-page PDF)In3 Capital – Inception to Due Diligence to Completion steps 2022 , or a more detailed summary of our 3-stage CAP process here.

If needed, an animated video, Why CAP (formerly CGP) and How It Works (just under 15 min) explains the complete process, starting with this pre-qualification stage, more visually.

The Six Essentials — detailed guidelines to gain pre-qualification

For new, mid-market construction projects funded via CAP, provide these Six Essential Items as a “snapshot” of the project’s profile to gain pre-qualification and proceed into formal due diligence. A binding offer will be made enabling financing closing within just a few weeks:

Project or Portfolio Name & Budget in US$ or Euros € (note that we can loan/invest in most local currencies; just the guarantee itself must be in either $ or €). A good descriptive name would be “100MW PV/solar project with storage (Ghana)”, for example.
Project Costs: Amount of funding required (for CAP, must be $25M or more) and Uses of funds – categories and (prefer US$) amounts and percentages for each category. Samples & examples
NOTE: If you have it calculated, also send the project’s overall (unlevered) Internal Rate of Return (IRR).
Proposed Financial Guarantee verbiage using our MS Word template (all available for download here). Ask the bank to put the verbiage in their own format, on the bank’s letterhead (or you can create a draft for their review). The guarantee does not need to be signed, for now, but we do need to receive the proposed language that will be used. Select one of the following:
- Bank Guarantee (BG/SbLC) — ask the issuing bank to use our template to put the instrument into their own format, on their letterhead. That plus the RWA letter, sent to us via Email, kicks off our due diligence.
- Avalized Promissory Note (AvPN) — If a Bank Guarantee / Standby Letter of Credit seems out of reach, consider asking a project’s stakeholder to “sponsor” the capital guarantee using a simple Commercial Promissory Note with bank “Aval” (more). Fill in our Promissory Note template with the issuing company information, then ask the bank to add their “aval” (seal). This does not use MT760 SWIFT messaging; hardcopy only. Starts with an RWA letter from the bank providing the aval.
- Sovereign Guarantee (SG) — send the selected bank our Confirmation Letter template (optional: fill it in first), and available SG verbiage (whether or not the instrument is signed for now) and explain that we use the RWA letter to verify and “block” the SG’s capital per SWIFT. Then, once accepted, send us both the SG and signed letter via email. Note that when a government is the sponsor, it might be easier to get them to direct a bank to issue a Standby Letter of Credit or Bank Guarantee (SbLC/BG) instead of an SG.
  Article: How to decide which instrument is right for you
  
  CHECKPOINT 1: Send In3 a filled-in draft of the bank-related guarantee instrument in MS Word or PDF, based on the appropriate template, for our review and pre-approval. Include the instrument’s proposed face value (% of the total funding from In3), the sending bank’s name and branch location, officer name(s), and other relevant details, along with information requested in Steps 1 & 2, above, in one email or via registration in our tracking database.
- If you get stuck here, note the situations In3 Group – When is CAP funding your best or only option through In3.
Proposed monthly drawdown schedule –– In practice, monthly draws accommodate critical-path construction milestones and cashflow requirements using consistent (the same amount each month) or increasing monthly amounts as construction activities ramp up.
Article: See recommended format and example on pgs 3-4 of this PDF

CHECKPOINT 2: Send In3 the above 4 items for approval to access our advantageous funding.

After In3’s receipt and acceptance of these final two items, that completes pre-qualification so the project can enter formal Due Diligence that same day:
RWA Letter (BG/SbLC, AvPN or SG; compare), the issuing bank’s Letter of Intent. Download and provide the appropriate MS Word template to the bank of your choice. Any real commercial bank will do, even some of the smaller ones, but best to start with the bank that knows you or your sponsor to save time with their KYC procedures.
All letter templates available as MS Word document downloads here

CHECKPOINT 3: Send In3 a draft of the bank’s letter to confirm that the wording is going to be acceptable.
Project Summary, information summary, or summary business plan. This usually includes the offtake or sales plan and anticipated project IRR based on either IFRS or GAAP financial modeling with transparent assumptions. Include any additional documents in support of your project, often organized into named folders within a confidential dataroom.

Send us at least the first three or four of these “Six Essentials” either using our simplified worksheet or register (additional files can be attached). Then, if the project qualifies and we are interested, we will request the signed RWA Letter (Item 5 of 6) from the guarantee instrument’s involved bank, your project’s financial model in MS Excel, as well as a dataroom of legal documents and related disclosures (Item 6 of 6!) to proceed with our due diligence.

What to expect: diligence to binding offer, financial close, fund & launch

Our diligence lasts no longer than 30 days, and typically just 2-3 weeks. During that time, if all goes well (there are no misrepresentations, gross omissions, or show-stopping issues), legal counsel will draft a Loan Agreement and Share Purchase Agreement and for your review. Upon acceptance and execution, the final step is delivery of the capital guarantee hardcopy to the Family Office’s funding bank. First monthly drawdown (pre-approved via Item 4, above) arrives within at most 30-45 days, with successive transfers per the established monthly schedule.

More on these pre-qualification items, in the context of the bigger picture — the full process, from “Inception to Completion” — via Complete Steps to Fundraising Success using In3 CAP.

When is a term sheet available?

Note that the first 4 items above are needed to obtain our written expression of interest (EOI), and all 6 of the above are needed to obtain a binding offer of terms and conditions. We rarely issue term sheets because it is usually more efficient to focus on the funding agreements directly (as mentioned above), but if necessary, we can also deliver term sheets (using Condition Precedents) upon completion of due diligence.

Streamlined Qualification via In3’s Capital Guarantee Program™ to move forward, faster

For more perspective on In3’s Completion Assurance Program (article about CAP’s purpose, benefits and advantages), introduced in 2018, or see this article that explains more about the notion of a capital guarantee.

All the tools you need to craft a winning proposal and deliver the Six Essentials shown above are available at CAP Proposal Builder — “faster, easier, better”.

If you are reasonably sure you have a project that’s going to pre-qualify for funding, register it in our tracking database to determine next steps (attached the draft guarantee verbiage from Item 3 above, and proposed draw schedule, Item 4, if available). If you are reasonably sure your project does not qualify for CAP, complete our RAIN assessment (simple set of 9 multiple-choice questions) or check out this alternative offer for $50 million or more.

Additional Tips and Guidelines (optional, but may be helpful)

Project capital providers all look for …

Developers that avoid these Seven Common Fundraising Mistakes
Financially and commercially-sound project(s) producing adequate cash flow and capital efficiency, as measured by IRR (minimums vary by industry — ask us if you’re not certain of yours)
Unless using In3’s CAP, sufficient equity investment from your team or others for 100% financing, or anything close to it. With CAP we can provide both equity and debt to illiquid developers, or in case the developer simply wishes to preserve available cash, using a finance guarantee instrument (definition) during construction as a type of completion surety. Guarantee options and facilitation guide.
Track record of success in the same or similar industry; with a capital guarantee, we are more open to investing in projects with first-time management teams.
Reasonably well-proven technology (but with In3’s CAP we can accept some technology risk, which is quite unusual for project financiers). We’re less open to commercial risk — the project’s business case must be strong enough to know that it will make money and perform adequately over the life of the project.
A solid project business plan — narrative summary of essential facts like project location (if secured), feedstock and/or offtake or sales agreements (if or as arranged), a GAAP or IFRS financial model in Excel (development assistance available under a fee-for-service agreement) including Sources & Uses of Funds, capital draw schedule, projected income statement, cashflow statement and unlevered IRR, per the above “essentials”. See our checklist for further details.