Goalposts for raising

The goalposts for raising a Pre-Seed, Seed and Series A round. Here are benchmarks: 𝑛𝑜𝑡𝑒: 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑒𝑥𝑐𝑒𝑝𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠 𝑡𝑜 𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑠𝑒 Pre-Seed: $750k - $1.5M round Valuation: $5M - $10M post 𝑇𝑟𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛: • a working MVP; • indications of customer demand = have interviewed hundreds of potential customers or users; • 2-5 “Design Partners” (non-paying customers or users). Seed: $2M - $5M round Valuation: $12M - $25M post (*I would not go over $15M) 𝑇𝑟𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 • $10k - $15k MRR, growing 10% MoM; • 6-12 customers who have been paying for ~6 months or more, a few that would serve as case studies and references; • Hired first technical AE. Series A: $8M - $15M round Valuation: 𝑎𝑛𝑦𝑜𝑛𝑒'𝑠 𝑔𝑢𝑒𝑠𝑠 𝑇𝑟𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 • $1.5M in ARR is good, more like $2M; • 3x YoY growth minimum, but more like 3.5x; • 12-20 customers, indications of ACV growth; • Sales team in place to implement the repeatable sales playbook. The above is meant to be general guidelines. No one is giving strict numbers in absolute $$, and momentum (growth rate) is far more important. General thinking is that if a b2b company isn't able to achieve 3xing YoY at this stage, it's unlikely that it will get better with time. Do not compare yourself to other companies who raised or announced in the last. ...It's a different game on the field.