How Much Money Should I Raise For My Seed Round?

Seed round financing refers to money raised in the earliest stages of running a startup and usually represents the initial capital raised by a company. It’s financing that is literally going to “plant the seeds” for your company’s future growth. You might have a stellar business plan, a working prototype, and even a few paying customers, but guess what? You still need money to purchase equipment, hire full-time staff, and rent out an office. So how much should you raise?

The easy answer, of course, is “as much as you can.” Imagine how easy things would be if you could raise enough seed stage capital that you would never have to go back to investors again in order to ask for more money. In a best-case scenario, you should try to raise enough money so that you can take your company to profitability. But realistically, you are only looking to get enough runway for the next 12 to 18 months at which point, yes, you’ll need to go back to investors and raise your Series A round.

There are several benchmarks for how much seed round capital you should raise. Assuming you’re a tech company bringing a new product to market, you should count on having a team of 5 engineers (or…