I was also trying to raise recently. It's interesting to me that the UK has an absolutely incredibly generous startup investment scheme (SEIS)[0], and still hasn't managed to make this work. SEIS is ludicrously generous, and should make getting funding a breeze in the UK, and yet ... somehow it isn't.

0: If a few hurdles are jumped through, then an investor who gives you £250k can get £125k relief on their income tax (not what they'd have paid on £125k, literally the whole £125k), and then claim a further 50% back of the remainder from the government if you go bust.