The arithmetic, the buyer, the cap table, the room and the hire: five things that decide a raise long before anyone says yes.

A VC isn’t judging your pitch in isolation. They’re working backwards from an exit that has to happen inside their fund’s lifetime, and every question they ask traces back to it.

We asked Hlayisani Capital co-founder and partner Brett Commaille, who has spent around 15 years in SA venture, what he wishes every founder knew before walking in.

A VC raises a 10-year fund, invests over two or three years, and has to exit before the fund closes. Because most bets fail, the winners must return roughly ten times, so a R500m ask implies something like a R5bn exit. Brett’s question is simply how many SA companies you’ve heard of selling for that much. Not many, which is why your number needs to survive the arithmetic before you say it out loud.

Here’s how to sanity-check your valuation with the 10x exit math.

There are only four realistic exits: trade buyers who pay on revenue for synergy, financial buyers who pay on EBITDA, an IPO that in SA is mostly theoretical, and management buyouts. International buyers rarely engage below about $50m, or below roughly $10m in revenue, and want you operating beyond South Africa. Knowing which buyer you’re building for changes what you optimise.

Here’s how to map who could actually buy your startup.

Founders assume the investor wants as much of the company as possible for as little as possible. Brett’s only concern is that the business has enough money to reach its next stage. Raise too much too early at too high a valuation and you can end up with 10% of your own company just as it starts to work, with a cap table that has to be cleaned out before anyone can invest behind you.

Here’s how to avoid the over-raising dilution trap.

A seed investor may be alongside you for a decade, which is why Brett describes it as spouse hunting. He’s watching whether you can explain the business simply, whether you’re coachable without being a yes-man, whether you can fail in a contained way, and whether you can actually sell. The slides matter far less than founders think.

Here’s how to pass a VC’s first-meeting test.

The value a VC is betting on gets built by people, and the hire founders most often get wrong is the first salesperson. The big-brand rainmaker usually fails, because the brand was doing the selling; the right hire is a dogged, teachable mid-market seller, inside a repeatable machine. A wrong hire costs about 18 months, and a CEO uncomfortable with a salesperson out-earning them is a red flag in itself.

Here’s how to hire your first salesperson in South Africa.

Walk in knowing these five and you’re no longer guessing what the investor wants. You arrive with a number that survives the exit maths, a buyer in mind, a raise sized to your next milestone, and a team that makes the case for you before the deck does.

Brett’s full fireside from Founder Collab Live is available to members inside the Founder Collab, where he goes further than we could cover here:

You’ll also get access to 40+ masterclasses from SA founders and operators on sales, fundraising, UX, paid media and more inside The Founder Collab.

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