I think if a founder speaks to a small handful of VCs and/or other knowledgable startup people: they can get a good sense of how easy or difficult fundraising will be...and that will be more useful than any one guideline that can be provided. Series A lead VCs need to see a potential path to $100 million in revenue going to $300 million to be a home run...and a combination of the team/product/market/traction combo gives an investor the necessary conviction and excitement to propose an investment.
The limitation with growth + revenue guidelines for fundraising is that it will never be enough information as there are so many factors that go into an investment decision. And there has been a proliferation of startups that reach $1 million in revenue growing ~15% a month and still the vast majority won't get to the scale that makes a series A VC happy.
As a side note, I'd love to see any company with "Engagement rates that are higher than Facebook" that can't fundraise. :) I think there may be some off the charts positive indicators: team with incredible track record, off the charts engagement + retention in a large market, amazing unit economics + high growth that the ability to fundraise is all but inevitable.
I think if a founder speaks to a small handful of VCs and/or other knowledgable startup people: they can get a good sense of how easy or difficult fundraising will be...and that will be more useful than any one guideline that can be provided. Series A lead VCs need to see a potential path to $100 million in revenue going to $300 million to be a home run...and a combination of the team/product/market/traction combo gives an investor the necessary conviction and excitement to propose an investment.
The limitation with growth + revenue guidelines for fundraising is that it will never be enough information as there are so many factors that go into an investment decision. And there has been a proliferation of startups that reach $1 million in revenue growing ~15% a month and still the vast majority won't get to the scale that makes a series A VC happy.
As a side note, I'd love to see any company with "Engagement rates that are higher than Facebook" that can't fundraise. :) I think there may be some off the charts positive indicators: team with incredible track record, off the charts engagement + retention in a large market, amazing unit economics + high growth that the ability to fundraise is all but inevitable.