Use-of-funds one-pager
Set out what the money buys, milestone by milestone, on a single page an investor can read in a minute.
Copyable template
Fundraising readiness · Copyable template
Milestone-to-raise map
Work backward from the milestone that makes the next round fundable to the raise that pays for it.
There is no single metric that unlocks funding. What an investor is testing is whether the company can become more valuable through the next chapter of work, and the evidence that answers that question changes with stage, sector, model, and the fund's own mandate.
This map is the six lines that carry the answer: the customer problem, the team advantage, the market wedge, product behaviour, the next milestone, and the financing need. Under each one you label what you actually have — known, directional, assumed, or unknown.
The point is not to reach a page with no unknowns on it. It is to make the unknowns visible, and then decide which of them this round has to resolve.
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What is in it
- Customer problem
- Team advantage
- Market wedge
- Product behaviour
- Next milestone
- Financing need
- Which unknowns this round has to resolve
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The template is ready. Add your email to open it, and you will also get The Raise Memo — a note for founders raising capital.
How to use it
Notes
One enthusiastic customer is a useful lead, not a pattern — a line labelled known on the strength of a single account is usually directional. And do not reshape the company around whichever story seems easiest to sell if it makes the business less coherent: inflated market claims, vanity metrics, artificial urgency, and a round size the operating plan cannot support are all versions of the same problem. Sometimes the honest answer this page produces is to wait, narrow the thesis, or use a different source of capital.
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The thinking behind it
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From the publication
Read The Raise Memo
A note for founders raising capital—what investors notice, how conviction gets built, and what to do next.
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