The Bankability Blueprint: Project Advisory Services That Move Projects to Funding
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A Funding-Readiness Roadmap for Developers (what lenders really want in 2026)
By Amimar International | Project Finance & Capital Advisory
Last updated: January 2026
“Project advisory services” can mean anything; from serious, lender-grade diligence to a polished deck that falls apart the moment underwriting starts.
In 2026, capital providers are less focused on whether your project is exciting and more focused on whether it’s deliverable: on time, on budget, with cash flows that behave like the model says they will. That’s the real definition of funding readiness, and it’s where proper project advisory creates real value.
This article breaks down what project advisory should include, what financiers typically require, and a practical roadmap to get from “good idea” to bankable project (without drowning you in jargon).
Table of contents
Why “Funding Readiness” Is The Real Product In 2026
Developers often treat financing as a single step: “we get a term sheet, then we build.” In practice, financing is a sequence of risk eliminations. Every time you remove an uncertainty (cost, schedule, permits, contracts, revenue), you lower the perceived probability of a bad outcome. And as that probability drops, the market rewards you with better terms, more lender appetite, and fewer “please provide…” emails that keep you stuck in diligence purgatory.
Execution risk is not theoretical. Industry surveys consistently show how common delays and overruns are. For example, Procore’s owner-focused research has reported that a large majority of projects experience delays and budget overruns, with change orders and schedule shifts often driving material cost impacts. That reality shapes lender behaviour. Even with a strong macro narrative, execution risk can cause capital providers to price conservatively, demand stronger covenants, require more equity, and insist on third-party reviews.
So, in today’s environment, “funding readiness” is what you’re actually selling to capital. You’re selling confidence that the project will behave like the model says it will.
What “Project Advisory Services” Should Mean (The Deliverables That Matter)
There’s nothing wrong with marketing polish - it helps. But polish is not bankability. The advisory scope that moves deals forward usually produces lender-facing outputs (things a credit committee, independent engineer, or investment committee can actually use).
A serious advisory engagement typically includes:
Funding strategy and capital stack design (debt/equity/non-dilutive instruments)
Bankability diagnostics (what credit committees will challenge first)
Financing-grade feasibility, including a risk register with mitigation actions
Contracting and risk-allocation strategy (EPC/O&M/offtake/leases, security package)
Diligence coordination (technical, insurance, environmental & social, legal)
Lender package + structured data room so diligence can finish
Term sheet negotiation support to protect economics and flexibility
One clue you’re dealing with a real underwriting world: many lenders expect independent validation—especially of technical assumptions. Export Development Canada’s project finance overview describes the common practice of lenders engaging an independent technical consultant/engineer (at the borrower’s cost) to validate forecast cost, schedule, performance, and key contracts. If your package can’t survive that kind of review, it isn’t funding-ready yet.
The Funding-Readiness Roadmap (Amimar’s Sequencing)
Think of this roadmap as gates. You don’t need every gate “perfect” before you talk to lenders, but you do need enough maturity that lender diligence can progress instead of loop.
1) Define the project so it survives cross-examination
“Concept” is not a project. A project has boundaries. It has a site, a scope, a timeline, and a permit path. The fastest way to lose lender confidence is to look like the scope is still moving.
Funding readiness begins with proving the project is real in a legal and practical sense: who controls the land, what approvals are required, what’s complete versus pending, what dependencies could derail schedule. This is also where you start building the “credibility chain” that a lender will later follow: site control documents, surveys, early design packages, permitting correspondence, grid/interconnect steps if relevant.
If your team can articulate the project in one page (scope, location, capacity, capex range, schedule basis, revenue mechanism, key counterparties) you’re already ahead of many proposals lenders see.
2) Build feasibility for bankability, not optimism
Feasibility isn’t “does this make money in a base case?” It’s “does this still make sense when reality acts like reality?”
In PPP and structured infrastructure contexts, the World Bank’s feasibility guidance emphasizes that transaction advisors typically build robust models to test viability and bankability (and, in PPP contexts, affordability and value-for-money). The principle matters even outside PPP: the feasibility work should map directly to underwriting.
A financing-grade feasibility approach connects the dots: market demand and pricing logic feed the revenue model; design decisions feed capex and performance; schedule assumptions feed interest carry and milestone risk; risk events get documented with probability, impact, and mitigation. This is where your project stops being “a story” and becomes an evidence-backed proposition.
3) Make costs and schedule defensible (not just neat)
Lenders can live with uncertainty. They can’t live with unexamined uncertainty.
A credible cost package shows how the number was built: line items, escalation logic, procurement assumptions, and contingency that isn’t just a random percentage. A credible schedule identifies the critical path and the long-lead items. It also shows you understand permitting dependencies and supply chain realities.
This is where many projects accidentally self-sabotage: they treat contingency as a “nice-to-have.” Underwriters treat it as a survival mechanism. If your contingency doesn’t match your risk profile (or you can’t explain it) you’re asking a lender to accept risk you didn’t price.
4) Prove revenue durability (or build a credible path to it)
Cash flow pays debt. Everything else is ornamental.
Depending on sector, revenue durability might come from long-term leases, offtake agreements, availability payments, contracted tipping fees, or take-or-pay structures. The pattern is the same: lenders want confidence that you aren’t relying on “we’ll sell it” as your revenue plan.
Offtake agreements, for example, are widely recognized as a key stabilizer in project finance because they can lock in volumes and pricing and reduce exposure to market volatility. If you don’t have a contract yet, then you need a contracting strategy that’s credible: target counterparties, negotiation stage, key commercial terms, and fallback options.
5) Allocate risk through contracts (the adult supervision layer)
In project finance, contracts are where risk goes to live.
Your construction approach, your O&M structure, and your revenue agreements are the mechanism that determines who carries performance risk, delay risk, cost overrun risk, and counterparty risk. This is why lenders read contracts so closely - and why “we have a great contractor” doesn’t substitute for the actual contract terms.
Good advisory work here is practical: it helps you negotiate for bankable terms, understand what lenders will require, and avoid the traps that look harmless until closing (or worse - until a dispute happens mid-construction).
6) Address Environmental & Social expectations early (because the market does)
E&S isn’t a box-tick if you’re working with serious capital. Many institutions align with frameworks like the IFC Performance Standards and the Equator Principles, which set expectations around impact assessment, stakeholder engagement, and ongoing performance management.
Equator Principles guidance indicates that independent E&S due diligence is required for higher-risk categories (Category A, and as appropriate Category B) in project finance contexts. OECD guidance also links responsible business conduct due diligence expectations with these frameworks in finance contexts.
The practical takeaway: you don’t want E&S surprises during diligence. Funding readiness includes early screening and a plan proportionate to the project: what studies are needed, what permits require what, how stakeholders will be engaged, and how mitigation will be tracked.
7) Build a model that behaves like a lender’s model
A lender-grade model is not just a spreadsheet; it’s an argument with receipts.
The model should be transparent (assumptions documented), testable (sensitivities that reflect real risk events), and aligned to bank metrics (DSCR, reserve logic, covenant headroom). A credit committee doesn’t just ask “does it work?” They ask “does it still work if capex is higher, if the schedule slips, if revenue ramps slower, if interest rates move, if operating costs rise?”
This is also where advisory earns its reputation: by preventing the “everything breaks if you change one assumption” model. A robust model is modular, consistent, and resilient under stress.
8) Package it so diligence can actually finish
Many financings don’t fail; they stall. They stall because documents are missing, scattered, contradictory, or stuck in draft. A lender’s diligence process runs on parallel workstreams (technical, legal, insurance, E&S, financial). If your materials aren’t organized for that reality, the process becomes slow and expensive.
A financing-grade data room and lender package reduce friction, lower perceived risk, and accelerate decision-making. Even strong projects can lose momentum if diligence becomes chaotic.
What “Diligence-Ready” Looks Like In Practice (Not Theoretical)
When a lender begins serious work, they tend to pull on the same threads. If you can make those threads easy to follow, you shorten timelines and improve outcomes. A clean lender package typically includes:
A clear investment memo (your story + evidence, not marketing language)
Uses & sources + capital stack narrative (why this structure is optimal)
Financial model + stress tests (and an assumptions memo)
Site control and permitting tracker (what’s done, what’s next, when)
Technical package (design basis, capex build, schedule basis)
Key contracts or advanced drafts (construction, O&M, revenue agreements)
Insurance summary (what’s in place, what’s planned, where gaps are)
E&S screening and plan (proportionate to lender requirements)
Sponsor profile and financial capacity (track record + ability to support)
That’s not “extra work.” That’s what financing is—just made explicit.
The Biggest Mistake Developers Make With “Project Advisory”
They treat advisory as something you do after you start talking to lenders.
In reality, advisory is most valuable when it happens early enough to shape the project into something lenders can approve without heroics. Early lender outreach with an under-baked package can create a pattern of soft passes that is hard to reverse. Capital providers have long memories, and “come back when it’s ready” often means “we’ve already mentally moved on.”
The better strategy is structured: do a funding-readiness diagnostic, fix the highest-impact gaps first, then go to market with a package that invites underwriting instead of endless follow-up.
What Amimar Means By “Project Advisory Services”
At Amimar, “project advisory” is a lender-facing process designed to reduce execution risk, tighten the capital stack, accelerate diligence, and improve term-sheet quality - not just to generate interest.
In plain terms: we help make your project easier to underwrite so you can spend less time explaining and more time building.
Want a fast funding-readiness diagnostic?
Amimar helps developers identify the specific gaps that slow financing, then builds the lender-grade package that accelerates diligence and improves term sheets. Contact us today to get started.
FAQs
What are project advisory services?
Project advisory services help developers structure, de-risk, and package a project so lenders and investors can underwrite it efficiently (covering feasibility, contract strategy, modelling, diligence preparation, and financing strategy).
What does “funding-ready” mean in project finance?
A funding-ready project has credible scope, permits, contracts, costs, schedule, revenue visibility, a defensible financial model, and a diligence-ready data room - so capital providers can reach approval without unknowns stalling the process.
Why do lenders require independent technical reviews?
Because technical performance, capex, and schedule credibility drive repayment risk. Many lenders require an independent engineer/technical consultant to validate these assumptions and the strength of key contracts.
When should I start lender outreach?
When your package can support underwriting: feasibility logic, cost/schedule basis, revenue plan or contracts, draft structure, and a clean data room. Outreach before that often produces soft passes and slow diligence.
List of Sources For This Article:
Procore Technologies, Inc. (2021). Owners at the leading edge: 2021 [Survey report]. https://mkt-cdn.procore.com/downloads/ebooks/2021OwnersSurvey.pdf
Export Development Canada. (n.d.). Overview of project financing for cleantech companies [PDF]. https://www.edc.ca/content/dam/edc/en/non-premium/cleantech-project-financing-overview.pdf
Equator Principles Association. (2020). The Equator Principles (EP4) [PDF]. https://equator-principles.com/app/uploads/The-Equator-Principles_EP4_July2020.pdf
Equator Principles Association. (2020). Guidance note: For consultants on the contents of a report for an independent ESDD review [PDF]. https://equator-principles.com/app/uploads/Independent_ESDD_Review_Oct2020.pdf
International Finance Corporation. (2012). IFC Performance Standards on Environmental and Social Sustainability [PDF]. https://www.ifc.org/content/dam/ifc/doc/2023/ifc-performance-standards-2012-en.pdf
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. (2018). OECD due diligence guidance for responsible business conduct [PDF]. https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/publications/reports/2018/02/oecd-due-diligence-guidance-for-responsible-business-conduct_c669bd57/15f5f4b3-en.pdf
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. (2022). Responsible business conduct due diligence for project and asset finance transactions (OECD Business and Finance Policy Papers) [PDF]. https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/publications/reports/2022/10/responsible-business-conduct-due-diligence-for-project-and-asset-finance-transactions_5533ba19/952805e9-en.pdf
PwC Australia. (2023). Key issues for offtake and construction interfaces: Investing in energy transition projects [PDF]. https://www.pwc.com.au/energy-transition/papers/24-key-issues-for-offtake-and-construction-interface.pdf
World Bank Group. (n.d.). Assessing project feasibility and economic viability (PPP Knowledge Lab). Retrieved January 5, 2026, from https://ppp.worldbank.org/assessing-project-feasibility-and-economic-viability
Dentons. (2018). Project risks: Identifying and allocating risks in international energy and infrastructure projects [PDF]. https://www.dentons.com/-/media/pdfs/guides-reports-and-whitepapers/dentons-global-project-finance-risk-english-v2.pdf
