What VCs Are Actually Looking For at Every Stage of Funding

By Sue Mulligan, Founder & CEO, Agile Advisors

I've sat across from a lot of founders over the last ten years.

The successful ones walked into investor meetings prepared. They knew their numbers, understood what stage they were at, and could speak to what that particular investor cared about.

Then there were the others. They showed up with a polished deck and a big vision and had no idea that what a seed investor cares about is almost completely different from what a Series B investor is looking for. They pitched the wrong things to the wrong people and couldn't figure out why nothing was working.

Here's what they were missing.

Pre-Seed: They're Betting on You

At pre-seed, there's often no product yet. Sometimes there's barely an idea. The deck is light on data because the data doesn't exist.

What investors are evaluating at this stage is almost entirely the founder.

Can this person attract the talent needed to build a go-to-market team? What's unique about them? Do they understand the problem they're trying to solve well enough to be the right person to solve it?

The numbers come later. Right now, you are the investment.

Seed: The Idea Has to Start Proving Itself

By seed, investors want to see early validation that you're building something people actually want.

Is there a real problem being solved? What's the TAM? Are there any early signs that customers want this — waitlists, pilots, letters of intent, early revenue?

The founder still matters a lot. "I think people will want this" isn't enough anymore. You need something real to point to.

One thing worth knowing right now: AI startups require a lot of capital and it's changing the math at seed. Rounds are hitting $10 million today, which was the average Series A just five years ago. Fewer companies are getting funded and the bar is rising. Come in with as much validation as you can get your hands on.

Series A: Prove You Can Execute

Series A is where a lot of founders hit a wall, and honestly, it's the round that surprises people the most.

What got you to seed is not what gets you to Series A. Investors are no longer evaluating your potential. They're evaluating your execution.

Have you built a team that can actually deliver? Are customers buying and sticking around? Is there evidence of product-market fit, or are you still searching for it?

Churn is a big one that founders consistently underestimate. High churn is a red flag regardless of how good your top-line revenue looks. If you're acquiring customers and losing them just as fast, investors will see it and they will ask about it. Know your retention numbers before you walk in.

This is also the stage where I always recommend having a CFO or financial advisor involved in your materials. Your projections need to be credible, your KPIs need to be the right ones for your business, and you need to be able to speak to both without hesitating.

Series B: Show Them You've Cracked the Code

By Series B, investors want to know whether the company has figured out how to grow consistently and keep customers.

Do you know exactly who your customer is, how to sell to them, and how to keep them? Do you have a team strong enough to handle it if the market shifts?

Somewhere between seed and here, something almost certainly didn't go according to plan. Investors want to know how you handled it.

This is also where your projections will get picked apart in a way that will surprise you if you're not ready. When I worked with two of my early clients — ShipBob and FourKites, both of whom went on to become Chicago unicorns — on their Series B with Bain, I got a call on a Saturday from a Harvard MBA who wanted to go line by line through our revenue assumptions. He pushed back hard on one of them. We went back and forth. I was right, and he eventually agreed.

That conversation went the way it did because I knew those projections cold. I understood the business behind every number and could defend every assumption.

Come prepared for that conversation. Build numbers you can actually hit — the old idea that you should inflate projections because investors will cut them in half anyway is long gone. Investors today expect you to execute on what you committed to.

Series C and Beyond: Can It Scale?

By Series C, the question is simple but harder to answer honestly than most founders expect: can what's been built keep growing without falling apart?

Do the unit economics get better as you scale or worse? Can the team and systems handle significantly more volume, more customers, more markets?

Investors at this stage aren't betting on a founder or a vision. They're looking at something that's already been built and proven, and they want to know how much further it can go.

One Thing That Applies at Every Stage

Your pitch deck needs to address AI.

According to a recent OECD report on venture capital investment through 2025, AI has become central to where capital is flowing. Data from Y Combinator companies funded in 2025 and 2026 showed that 83% mentioned AI in their company descriptions.

You don't need to be an AI company. You do need to be able to answer two questions: how are you using AI to make your business faster or more defensible, and what does your moat look like as AI keeps advancing?

If you don't have a clear answer, someone in that meeting will ask. Make sure you're ready.

The Part Nobody Puts in a Deck

Once you start raising, you don't stop.

I've watched founders treat a fundraise like a project with a start and an end date. It isn't. You close your seed and you're already building toward your Series A story. Once you close your A, the work toward your B begins.

Build investor relationships before you need them. Take meetings when people ask, even when it doesn't seem directly useful. I've had VCs take a meeting with me early on and send me my first real clients because I showed up and was generous with my time. It happens more than people think.

The founders who raise well aren't just the ones with the best decks. They're the ones investors already know.

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Sue Mulligan is the Founder & CEO of Agile Advisors, an outsourced accounting and finance firm specializing in venture-backed startups and entrepreneur-led acquisitions. She started the company ten years ago on a soccer field, of course, and has since grown it into a team of 30, predominantly women returning to the workforce. Agile Advisors is based in Chicago.