Equity gap

The distance between the equity a deal requires and the cash the buyer actually has: what remains after the loan and the buyer's own injection are counted against the total a lender and seller will accept.

It is the reason self-funded searchers raise outside money at all, usually as deal-by-deal minority checks pooled into one SPV after the LOI; gap capital is the thinnest lane of the search ecosystem, so the raise takes longer than first-timers plan for.

In numbers: A $2M deal needing a $300k injection when the buyer has $150k leaves a $150k equity gap; investors filling it typically come in post-LOI through a single SPV the lender can underwrite cleanly.