My buyer was overseas. The wire transfer took longer than the entire rest of the deal.
Price, terms, and paperwork were done in a week. Getting paid took three more.
Angel investor selling to an international buyer
Illustrative composite. A representative scenario built from how angel secondaries commonly play out — realistic numbers, written in the first person, not the record of a specific named person or company.
Deal snapshot
- Side
- Selling
- Sector
- Fintech
- Stage at entry
- Series A
- Original check
- $30,000
- Buyer location
- Buyer based outside the US
- Sold at
- 14% below last round
- Extra time for payment
- ~3 weeks
A deal that moved fast, until it didn't
The buyer, an individual investor based overseas, moved quickly through negotiation and paperwork — price agreed within days, transfer documents signed within a week. I expected funds shortly after.
Where the delay actually came from
His home country had currency-control rules restricting how much capital could leave without additional bank and regulatory approval for a transaction of this size. None of this was disclosed upfront, not out of bad faith, but because he genuinely hadn't anticipated it either. His bank needed three extra weeks to clear the outbound transfer.
I also had to confirm my own bank wouldn't flag an unusual-sized incoming international wire as suspicious, which meant a call to my bank's compliance line to pre-clear it — a step I hadn't needed for any domestic buyer.
What I ask cross-border buyers now
Whether their home country has capital or currency controls that could affect an outbound transfer of this size, and roughly how long their bank says a wire of that size typically takes to clear. It doesn't prevent the delay, but it means I'm not caught by surprise, and I can set my own expectations — and the company's — accordingly.
What to take from this
- Ask a cross-border buyer about currency or capital controls in their home country before assuming a standard timeline.
- Large international wires can also get flagged by your own bank — pre-clear an unusual incoming transfer.
- A fast-moving negotiation doesn't guarantee a fast close when currency movement is involved.
Every angel who has held a position long enough eventually faces a version of this decision. For the mechanics behind stories like this one, see the guide to how secondaries work.