Once you receive an agreement on the terms of your investment, the ideal protocol is for the investor to wire the money, and then for you to issue them a signed note upon receipt of the wire.
Technically, once you sign the note, you owe the note holder money. So you don't want that to be signed until you receive their cash. The chicken-and-egg is that they may not want to give the cash until they have a signed doc confirming the note.
Sometimes people use a note purchase agreement to get around this chicken-and-egg.
But in absence of that, you can do any of the following (in this order of preference):
Send them an unsigned version of the note, and wire instructions. Ask them to sign the note via eSign service, and wire funds. And say that upon receipt of the wire and the signed note, you will send a countersigned note back.
Here’s an email template you can use:
To: <Angel Investor>
From: <Founder Email>
Subject: Securing Spot in <Your Company Name>
Attach: Note and Wiring Instructions
Dear <Investor First Name> -
Great chatting earlier. I wanted to follow up on our conversation to secure your spot in <Your Company Name>.
As discussed, you are circled for a $<XX> investment in <Your Company Name> on a note with a $<XX>m cap and a <XX>% discount.
I am attaching the formal note above. Also attached above are wiring instructions for the account.
If this looks good, please e-sign the version of this note coming by separate mail via <eSign service you use i.e. Echosign>.
And please remit $<XX> to the wiring instructions attached above by 5 PM PST on Friday. Please note: we cannot guarantee availability in the round after this date / time.
Please let me know if you have any questions.
We are very excited about <Your Company Name>, and glad to add you to the backer circle.
My best,
<Your Name>
Send them a signed version of the note, but say that this note is in escrow until receipt of funds. Ask them to wire funds and sign the note by a certain deadline (e.g. Friday of this week), and you will send an email confirming receipt and releasing the note from escrow.
Do a note purchase agreement