Why do I say that “Use of Funds” is Not a Strategy, Milestones ARE? Most pre-seed decks have a slide called “Use of Funds.” Most of them are useless. “Raising £1.5M: 40% product, 35% sales, 25% G&A.” Erm, sorry, that’s not a plan. That’s a budget spreadsheet dressed up as investor communication. And any investor who’s seen more than ten decks will spot the difference immediately.
Here’s the real problem. Founders confuse where the money goes with what the money does. Not the same thing.
Investors don’t fund time. They fund outcomes.
“We’re raising £1.5M for 18 months of runway.”
No. Runway is not a milestone. Survival is not a return. No serious investor writes a cheque so you can exist for another year and a half. They write a cheque because your plan converts their capital into a measurable, verifiable leap in company value. And because your next round becomes easier, cheaper, and more competitive as a direct result.
The question every investor is silently asking when they read your Ask slide isn’t “can they spend this money?” It’s “what does this company look like on the other side of this raise. And is that outcome worth the risk?”
If your deck doesn’t answer that, you’ve already lost the room.
What a milestone-linked Ask actually looks like:
Weak version: “£1.5M to build the product and grow the team.”
Strong version: “£1.5M to reach £80k MRR, onboard 3 enterprise logos, and hit the metrics required for a £5M Series A in Q3 2026.”
Every pound is now pulling in the same direction. Every hire, every sprint, every campaign is tethered to a specific outcome. That’s not just better investor communication, it’s better company management.
The hiring problem
Vague headcount = vague thinking.
“60% product, 40% sales” says nothing. It doesn’t say what stage those hires are, what they unlock, or why that ratio is right for this business at this moment.
“Two senior engineers to complete the core API + one enterprise AE to land healthcare accounts”: that shows you know exactly what’s blocking you and you’ve sized the solution precisely. That’s investable. The former is guesswork with formatting.
Show the maths. Don’t hide from it.
Pre-seed founders often avoid hard numbers on the assumption that vagueness is safer. It isn’t. It signals that you haven’t done the work, or that the numbers don’t hold up.
Show your current burn. Show your post-raise burn. Show how the two connect to your runway and your milestone timeline. If your numbers don’t reconcile with your narrative, a sharp investor will notice in under 60 seconds. You want them to notice before the meeting — and find that they do reconcile.
Build in a 20% contingency. Not because you’re being pessimistic. Because everything in a startup takes twice as long and costs twice as much. Smart founders plan for that. Naive ones explain it later.
Don’t anchor valuation on the Ask slide
This is where founders routinely kill their own leverage. The moment you tie a valuation to your raise ask, you’ve opened a negotiation you’re not ready to win. Leave it off. Price is a discussion. Progress is proof. Let the market respond to what you’ve built, not to the number you’ve guessed at.
What this money gets you to — and what comes after
The best Ask slides don’t just show where this raise lands the company. They show why that landing position makes the next raise obvious.
What specific metrics unlock your Series A? What does this round’s milestone list prove — to the next investor, not just to you?
If I can’t see the bridge to the next round, I assume there isn’t one.
Shift your mindset
Stop thinking about “use of funds” as a financial disclosure. Start thinking about it as the operating logic of your next 18 months, expressed in the language of investor return.
Capital is for speed, not comfort. No founder debt repayment. No inflated salaries. Every pound earns its place by moving the company measurably closer to the outcome that justifies the next cheque.
That’s what raise-ready looks like. Get in touch if you need help framing the argument. We can help.
