How much should you raise?
One of the first questions every founder faces when entering fundraising mode is also one of the most uncomfortable: how much money should we actually raise? Raise too little and you walk into the next round under pressure with weak metrics. Raise too much and you take on dilution you didn't need, plus the expectations and pressure that come with a bigger round. The sweet spot is a number that gets you to a real milestone — not a vague "more growth" — with enough buffer to absorb the surprises that always happen.
Most early-stage founders use a simple framework: pick a target runway, multiply by current monthly burn, and add a buffer. Eighteen months is the most common runway target because it gives you roughly twelve months to execute and six months to fundraise the next round without panic. A 20% buffer on top of the base is a healthy default — it covers slower-than-expected revenue, a surprise hire, a tax bill, or a marketing experiment that doesn't pan out. Add it all up and you have a defensible ask.
Why runway matters more than burn
Investors do not really care about your monthly burn in isolation. They care about runway — how long that burn buys you — because runway determines whether you can hit the milestones the next round will require. A startup burning ₹20 lakh per month with ₹4 crore in the bank has 20 months of runway. The same startup with only ₹1 crore has 5 months and is in trouble. When you size your raise around runway, you force yourself to think in milestones, not months.
Building a milestone-based ask
The strongest fundraising decks tie the funding goal to specific outcomes. "We need ₹3 crore to reach ₹1 crore ARR and prepare for Series A" is much more compelling than "We need ₹3 crore for 18 months of runway." Reverse-engineer the milestone, list the hires and experiments required to get there, and price each line item. The funding goal is then bottoms-up rather than a generic multiple of burn. Use this calculator to sanity-check your number, and the milestone narrative to defend it in the room.
Tips for founders
- Default to 18 months of runway — 12 to execute, 6 to fundraise.
- Add a 15–25% buffer; never raise exactly what your model says.
- Tie the ask to a milestone investors care about, not an internal one.
- Stress-test your model with a 20% revenue miss before locking the number.
- Plan the next round's metrics now; raise to hit them, not to survive.
- If the ask feels too small to be worth it, you may not be ready to raise yet.