Documents

Within this website you will see a list of documents, criteria, a funding brief and further information on who we are, what we do and how we do it. It is absolutely critical that you're prepared. This effectively means that you have on hand the documents we need in order to at least make an early assessment. An Executive Summary will be requested upfront. From this document we can specify whether we're potentially interested in your project. It is not enough to simply have an idea; we want to see that a credible team have conducted initial tests, gathered supporting evidence, have an idea who their target market is and have correctly correlated that data with a discount into a financial forecast. A project proposal for funding that is weak will indicate a lack of required skill within the project team.

You may use the appropriate form found on this website under the heading "Forms" or "Project Forms". This will request an upfront Executive Summary along with key specific information pertaining to your project, none of which will cause any kind of intellectual property or privacy concerns as it's generally considered public information. You will receive a response from that form, generally a request to meet (physically or digitally) or a request for more information, or an initial assessment that your project appears to be outside of our criteria. An obviously false project will be ignored entirely and at our discretion. However, at all times the communication channels are open and you're welcome to request contact to speak with a project assessor to best re-evaluate any initial assessment.

After meeting (physically or digitally) and upon a general indication of interest in your project from an initial assessment, we will table a Non Circumvention, Non Disclosure Agreement for signing by both parties. This essentially protects both parties but for the most part, it's to protect and provide confidence that sharing confidential project information and intellectual property with us will be safe. We cannot further assess toward the outcome you seek without full disclosure inclusive of frank conversations, open discussions with respect to errors or improvement, a fair basis for negotiation or a funding contract, should any information be withheld. Our assessors become your relationship managers in this process, so please be prepared to share with a vision of a long term partnership.

After getting to know a bit more about your project and your team, what drives the idea, the objectives you have and ultimately your desired result in working with us, we need to review your documentation. This is when we will ask for your Business Plan, your Marketing Plan (which may be contained within the Business Plan) and your Financial Projection. Expect information within these documents to change throughout the process whilst working with us. From these documents, we will make a critical assessment - whether to commit resources, which resources, an internal budget and time frame estimate. A physical meeting with your team will be required. We will now ask for the rest of your documentation inclusive of reference and auxiliary materials, data, reports for us to analyse.

At this stage, we may require a form of bond. We will introduce a number of expert third parties to further qualify your project, idea and/or results. Any such parties will be under strict NCNDA and will only finalise their assessments after physically meeting your team or certain key team members relevant to their assessment. Upon conclusion, they must delete all material (if any is received) with respect to your project, excluding the report they generated. All material is stored, accessed and read securely within Binder, our own custom and highly secure administration tool. We will conclude this phase when the project team have sufficiently addressed any questions, concerns, issues or suggestions made by the expert consultants. If positive, we will progress to the negotiation phase.

After many meetings that have resulted in the satisfactory conclusion of a finalised general plan, we will now seek to negotiate terms. The agenda for terms includes brokerage for funding, a project management contract, a proposal to the funders that we will engage and the setting of expectations with respect to time frames to conclude funding. Upon successfully concluding negotiation, we will supply the necessary agreements to sign and begin Phase Five with a full report that will include our recommendations, assessment of the project, the project team, products and/or services (inclusive of quality and risk) and any third party expert validation reports. This is in addition to an updated set of project documents - Business Plan, Financial Projection and Resource/Reference List.

Concluded funding is when we receive an executable funding contract and drawdown schedule, and agreed equity has been formally allocated. The project would pay our service invoice and agreed brokerage out of the first tranche received from the funder organisation. Any retained services per an ongoing relationship i.e. in the form of Project Management and/or Board advisory would have been included in the budget (Financial Projection) from the prior negotiation phase and would be charged per agreement, likely on a monthly basis. This is when you may begin your project from a cash ready position. Ardent Partners is not a micro manager, we will not manage your projects daily operations (unless funds are misappropriated). Our role in "monitoring" is to support, advise and report.