Are you actually ready to raise?
15 questions across the five dimensions VCs evaluate. Get a personalized score, see your strengths and gaps, and know exactly what to fix before your first investor meeting.
What Stage of Startup Funding Are You At?
Startup funding stages aren't just labels — they represent specific milestones VCs expect you to have hit. Misidentifying your stage is one of the fastest ways to get passed on. Approaching Series A investors with pre-seed traction wastes their time and burns a relationship you can't rebuild.
Pre-seed: You have a thesis, maybe a prototype, and a founding team. VCs at this stage are betting on people and markets, not metrics. Typical raises: $250K–$1M via SAFEs from angels, pre-seed funds, and accelerators.
Seed: You have a product, early customers (ideally paying), and evidence of product-market fit. This is where most first-time founders aim. Typical raises: $1M–$4M. VCs want to see 50–100+ customers or $10K+ MRR with clear growth trajectory.
Series A: You have proven product-market fit, typically $1M–$2M+ ARR, consistent 15–20%+ month-over-month growth, a repeatable acquisition channel, and a clear path to $10M ARR. Typical raises: $5M–$15M.
The Fundraising Scorecard tells you which stage you're actually at — based on what VCs see, not what you hope.
Pre-Seed vs Seed vs Series A: What VCs Expect at Each Stage
Each funding stage has a different set of proof points. The mistake founders make is thinking fundraising is about the pitch deck. It's not. It's about whether you've hit the milestones that justify the round size and valuation you're asking for.
At pre-seed, investors evaluate your team, market thesis, and domain expertise. They're asking: “Can these people figure it out in a big enough market?” Traction is a bonus, not a requirement. What kills pre-seed raises: solo founders with no domain expertise in small markets.
At seed, the bar shifts from team to traction. Investors want paying customers, early revenue, and engagement metrics that signal retention. They're asking: “Is this working?” What kills seed raises: zero revenue, high churn, or no evidence anyone will pay.
At Series A, investors are underwriting your ability to scale what's already working. They want $1M+ ARR, proven unit economics (CAC, LTV, payback period), a repeatable acquisition channel, and a financial model showing how their capital gets you to $10M ARR. What kills Series A raises: “we'll figure out the business model with the money.”
The 5 Startup KPIs VCs Look at First
Before a VC opens your pitch deck, they want five numbers. If you can't produce them, the meeting is already over.
1. Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR): Not annual projections — current monthly revenue from recurring sources. For seed, $10K–$50K MRR. For Series A, $80K–$150K+ MRR.
2. Month-over-Month Growth Rate: VCs benchmark against 15–20% MoM for early-stage. Consistency matters more than a single spike. Three months of 15% beats one month of 40%.
3. CAC & LTV: What does it cost to acquire a customer, and how much are they worth over their lifetime? LTV/CAC of 3:1 or better signals a viable business model at scale.
4. Burn Rate & Runway: How much you spend monthly and how long your cash lasts. VCs want to see 12–18 months of runway post-funding. Founders who don't know their burn rate to the dollar signal operational weakness.
5. Net Revenue Retention: For SaaS, this is the ultimate indicator of product-market fit. Over 100% means existing customers grow faster than churning ones — the business compounds without new sales.
Can you produce all five right now? If not, the scorecard above shows you exactly where to focus.
Your Startup Financial Model: What Investors Actually Need
The difference between a financial model and a pitch deck slide with a hockey stick: a real model has assumptions you can defend, line by line, when an investor pushes back. It answers the fundamental question: “How does my $2M check turn into $10M ARR?”
A startup financial model should include: a bottoms-up revenue forecast (not “if we get 1% of the market”), a hiring plan tied to growth milestones, customer acquisition costs by channel, and a cash flow projection showing when you'll need to raise again.
Most founders put financial projections together the week before investor meetings and it shows. The projections are top-down, the assumptions are unjustified, and the growth curve looks like every other deck the investor saw that day.
Build the model before you build the deck. The deck tells your story. The model proves it's not fiction.
The Startup Due Diligence Checklist: What VCs Verify Before Writing a Check
After a VC decides they're interested, due diligence begins. This is where deals die quietly. The due diligence checklist typically covers: cap table and ownership structure, financial statements and bank records, customer contracts, IP ownership and assignments, employment agreements, and any pending legal issues.
The most common diligence failures: cap table issues (too many shareholders, unresolved ESOP promises, or founder vesting not in place), missing IP assignments (your CTO built the product but never assigned IP to the company), and financial records that don't match what was presented in the pitch.
Preparing your data room before you start fundraising — not after a term sheet lands — signals professionalism and saves weeks of back-and-forth that can kill momentum.
How to Raise Money for a Startup (Without Wasting 6 Months)
The right time to raise isn't when you need money. It's when you can show that additional capital will accelerate something that's already working. Fundraising from desperation gets you bad terms, bad investors, or no deal at all.
The fundraising process typically takes 3–6 months from first meeting to wire. Build relationships 6+ months before you need to raise. Set a hard fundraising window (8–12 weeks) to create urgency. Target 20–30 investors who invest at your stage and in your sector. And run the process with discipline — weekly pipeline reviews, follow-up cadences, and clear decision timelines.
The single biggest mistake: raising before you're ready. It burns investor relationships you can't rebuild, anchors your company at a low valuation, and wastes months you could have spent building. The second biggest mistake: raising from a position of need instead of strength.
The scorecard above tells you whether you're ready — and if not, exactly what to build first.
15 questions · 5 minutes · Free personalized scorecard
Know your moat before you pitch it.
VCs will ask what makes you defensible. The Moat Index scores your competitive moat across 12 dimensions — data, workflow lock-in, strategy, and execution — so you have the answer ready.
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Know your numbers before the investor call.
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