Every venture eventually reaches a fork: it scales toward a liquidity event, or it matures into a strong business with a ceiling. Both are wins. Most early-stage capital pretends only the first path exists, because the second is harder to charge fees against.
Forcing an exit narrative onto a yield business to justify an introduction is how trust dies, slowly with the founder, instantly with the investor who figures it out. There are two investor temperaments, growth and income, and both are legitimate; the dishonesty is pretending a company is one kind when the evidence says it is the other.
Name the fork before the money moves. Write down which track the evidence currently supports, revisit it on a cadence, and let capital self-select. Every party at the table earns from an outcome they actually signed up for.