Shane Murphy: Explaining the Next Stage of a Cambridge Business Project

I am Shane Ian Murphy, a former co-founder and Chief Business Development Officer of Limitless Mobile and cofounder of Dual Party Capital, and this is an affiliated founder’s perspective on the business I am helping develop. Our stated focus includes asset tokenisation, structured financing and investment discussions. Those subjects can attract attention very quickly. I think the more useful starting point is slower and more practical: what does the business need capital to accomplish, and what evidence would show that the money had done its job?

A funding request becomes clearer when the founder can describe the next stage in ordinary commercial language. Completing a feasibility exercise is different from acquiring an operating asset. Building an initial product is different from expanding an established distribution channel. Each objective has its own spending pattern, uncertainties and time horizon. If these differences disappear inside a single headline funding requirement, the conversation loses information precisely when participants need it most.

I would begin with a sequence of uses rather than a preferred financial instrument. What needs paying for first? Which expenditure creates something that can be inspected or measured? Which costs recur even if progress is delayed? A business might be able to postpone an expansion expense while remaining unable to postpone essential maintenance. Understanding that distinction helps explain the practical consequences of receiving less capital, receiving it later or receiving it in stages.

Stages matter because evidence changes. At an early point, a business may have an idea, an experienced team and a plausible route to market. Later, it may have signed contracts, operating records or a clearer view of customer demand. I do not think a founder should describe those situations as interchangeable. The commercial argument should develop with the evidence, and the proposed funding structure should be examined against the circumstances that actually exist.

That is also why I regard contingency planning as part of the central explanation. A timetable built around uninterrupted progress can make a project appear simpler than it is. I want to understand which milestone depends on an external permission, which depends on another commercial party and which is directly within the team’s control. A delay in one place may affect spending elsewhere. Showing those relationships gives a potential counterpart something substantive to discuss.

Consider a fictional Cambridge design studio preparing a prototype before deciding whether to manufacture a larger batch. The studio could distinguish the cost of producing the sample, the work needed to test it and the later decision about production. The initial request should explain which stage it supports and what the team hopes to learn. This hypothetical example describes no actual client, funding application or promised commercial result.

In practice, I would expect an initial funding brief to distinguish the minimum viable next step from the full ambition. It should explain what happens after that step, without pretending that a later outcome is already secured. There is room for ambition here. A founder can describe a large opportunity while being precise about the smaller commitments needed to investigate or develop it. Precision makes ambition easier to evaluate because the reader can follow the proposed route.

I also want a conversation about the consequences of the structure itself. Repayment obligations, dilution, control provisions and the timing of distributions can affect the business after the initial funding event. An arrangement that appears attractive at the outset may impose obligations that deserve closer examination. The relevant question is whether the business can explain those obligations and consider them alongside its operating plan, with appropriate professional advice where required.

My view is that a useful funding discussion should leave everyone with a clearer understanding of the next decision. It need not end with a commitment to have been worthwhile. A better defined project, a revised sequence of milestones or a decision to gather missing evidence can all represent progress. At Dual Party Capital, this is the standard I want our proposed approach to encourage: capital conversations grounded in purpose, stage and practical responsibility.