Won Funding? Why You Should Wait to Celebrate. Here's why your big investment isn't (an immediate) reason to celebrate.

The founders of PVP Live were itching to make the announcement: They'd raised a big Series A! This was in 2015, and the company -- which covers competitive video games the way ESPN covers sports -- had just accepted an investment from a local Dallas private equity firm.

"We were three days away from making a public announcement," says CEO and co-founder Casey Wehr, "but our PR firm had told us to sit tight and not say anything until the money was in the bank." It was good advice. As it turns out, their investor was heavy into oil and gas. Between the time PVP Live signed with the investor and the money was supposed to enter their bank, the energy industry took a dive, the investor got spooked and the investment disappeared.

"It was demoralizing," Wehr says. "We had to start back at square one; the other firms who'd offered us term sheets had already reallocated their funds or rejected us because we didn't choose them first."