How Much Should You Raise (and What Will It Cost You)?

The number on your SAFE isn't really about how much money sounds impressive. It's a decision about runway, about the milestone you're committing to hit, and about how much of the company you're willing to give up to get there. Get the number wrong in either direction and it costs you.

Start from the milestone, not the number

Work backward. Figure out the specific milestone that will make your next round meaningfully easier to raise – a revenue number, a user count, a completed product, a signed pilot – and then calculate what it actually costs, in time and money, to reach it. The round size follows from that milestone; it isn't a number you pick first and justify afterward.

The runway math

Once you know the milestone, the math is straightforward: divide the amount you're considering raising by your expected monthly burn to get your runway in months. Then add a buffer, because fundraising itself takes months you'll be spending instead of building.

• Estimate monthly burn honestly, including your own salary, not a founder-discount version of it.
• Add three to six months on top of your milestone timeline for the time it will take to raise the next round.
• Aim for 18 to 24 months of total runway at pre-seed, long enough to hit your milestone and still have a cushion.
• Recheck the math whenever your burn changes – a new hire changes your runway more than founders usually expect.

What 'typical' looks like right now

Pre-seed rounds commonly land between $250,000 and $2 million, with the bulk clustering closer to $750,000 to $1.5 million, often raised on a SAFE with a post-money valuation cap somewhere in the $4 million to $6 million range. These are ranges, not rules – your actual number depends on your sector, your burn rate, and how much capital your specific milestone requires – but they're a useful gut check against a number that sounds ambitious but isn't grounded in anything.

The cost isn't only equity

A bigger round often means more investors to manage, more updates to send, and sometimes a board seat or information rights that follow you for years. None of that is necessarily bad, but it's a real cost that doesn't show up in the dilution percentage. Factor in how much structure and oversight you actually want at this stage, not just how much capital someone is willing to offer.

The trade-off nobody skips

Every dollar you raise is a percentage of the company you no longer own, so 'raise more just in case' isn't automatically the safer choice. Raising too little sends you back into fundraising mode within a few months, often from a weaker negotiating position than you had the first time. Raising too much can set a valuation and a spending pace that your actual traction can't justify at the next round, which creates its own, harder problem later.

The right amount to raise is the smallest number that gets you to a real milestone with room to spare – not the biggest number someone will hand you.