The year a company raises matters. In the record, the share of US private raises that sold in full fell from 41.9% in 2021 to 30.7% in 2024. The industry it raises in matters more. Across the twenty-two industries with at least a hundred raises in 2024 and 2025, the share sold in full runs from 65.4% to 13.2%.1
At the top are businesses whose investors are close to them. Small banks raise from their depositors, directors and local community, with a median of nineteen investors and a placement agent in two raises out of five. Insurers raise from a handful of investors writing more than a million dollars each. Pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies raise mostly from specialists, and two in three have raised before.
At the bottom are oil and gas, restaurants, retail and manufacturing. Oil and gas is in a class of its own: 13.2% sold in full, 74.6% sold less than half, and a median cheque of $125,000, the smallest of any industry. It is also the industry most likely to advertise. In 2024 and 2025, 38.2% of its raises were offered to the public under Rule 506(c), and a quarter paid an agent.
That combination describes a particular kind of raise, sold widely to individuals for a single well or a small drilling programme. These are hard to finish because each investor writes little and each must be found. The industries that fill well are mostly those where a company raises from people who already know it, and raises again.
An industry's fill rate is a price list for credibility.
A founder cannot change their industry, but they can change how they raise within it. In the hard industries, raises that come from a small number of informed investors look much more like the easy ones. Real estate shows it: residential and commercial raises fill about a third of the time, but they are sold to a median of sixteen or seventeen investors in cheques under $200,000. A developer with three institutional partners is in a different market from one with forty individuals, though the filings put them in the same box.
Method. US operating companies' Form D offerings of $1m to $1bn (pooled investment funds excluded), read from the SEC's quarterly data sets. Fill rates use offerings begun from 2022 to 2024 with a stated amount, so each has had time to finish. "Sold in full" means at least 99.9% of the amount offered, "less than half" under 50%, as last reported. Counts of raises, investors and cheques use offerings begun in 2024 and 2025. The cheque is the amount sold divided by the number of investors. Every table behind this note is in the Ledger, where it can be sorted and copied.
“An industry's fill rate is a price list for credibility.”
Sources
- Form D data sets, US Securities and Exchange Commission, 2014 to 2026
- Form D, General Instructions, US Securities and Exchange Commission
Cite as: “Oil and gas raises are the hardest private raises to fill”, Norvian Review, 28 October 2026.