Luca Ferrari

It's all about not losing it.

So a lot of the questions are more oriented toward understanding the potential worst case scenario and the risks.

Equity investors are more oriented toward the TAM.

How big could this be?

How quickly could we get there?

The surprising part is a lot of banks, a lot of lenders are actually quite visionary.

I heard people say, well, they're probably more boring because they're actually no, a lot of them are brilliant and visionary.

So they're quite curious about the model and how far it could go and understand very quickly why it works.

I thoroughly enjoyed my conversations with lenders, at least as much as those with equity investors.

Perhaps because they have to be so paranoid about the downside, this breeds in them a thoroughness, a thoughtfulness that's not always the case with equity investors, for whom maybe that intuition of, oh, this team, this thing could go far is more important.

Catching the big wins is more important, and so they can be wrong more often.

So they're maybe a little bit more quicker in their judgment, a bit more.

But I think lenders are quite an interesting type of investor to talk to.

And generally, it works that you talk to a couple of anchor lenders, some of the biggest banks, typically those with a strong investment banking arm too.

They help you figure out that kind of shape around.

They commit some of the money immediately so you know you've got some of it covered and you know where you're going.

And then you start bringing under the tent more players with other important roles and then lesser roles.

And at some point, it's quote unquote, just providing capital.

And typically, some of this capital is basically, it's with that lender, it will stay with you until maturity, five or seven years down the line.

Some of this capital, you may want to syndicate.