by Gary Worthington, More Than Monkeys

Securing investment is often portrayed as a mysterious process, with pitch decks flying around and valuations seemingly plucked from thin air. In reality, fundraising follows a series of recognisable stages. Each stage has its own expectations, norms, and investor mindset.

If you’re building a startup, understanding these stages will help you align your story with what investors are actually looking for. It also helps to know how the right technical partner can not only accelerate your progress but also give investors confidence that you can deliver.

Pre-seed: The Idea and the Founders

At the very earliest stage, investment is typically based on belief. There’s rarely a product, little or no revenue, and often not even a team beyond the founders.

Investors at this stage are usually angels or early-stage funds. What they’re really betting on is you: your experience, your insight into the problem, and your ability to build something people want.

What investors expect at pre-seed:

• A credible founding team with complementary skills.
• A clear articulation of the problem you’re solving.
• Early signs of demand (surveys, waitlists, or pilot users).
• Conviction that the market is large enough to matter.

Where More Than Monkeys helps: We work with founders to validate assumptions, shape the MVP, and set out a clear technical strategy. For investors, this demonstrates that the team has a pragmatic plan and the capability to execute, reducing the perceived risk of “idea-stage” bets.

Seed: Building and Validating

Seed rounds are where you move from story to substance. You’re expected to have a working product, some early customers, and signs that the problem really matters to them.

Investors here want proof: that customers engage with your product and that you can turn feedback into rapid improvements.

What investors expect at seed:

• A working MVP in the hands of real users.
• Clear traction metrics (signups, retention, engagement).
• A go-to-market plan that makes sense.
• A roadmap that points towards product-market fit.

Where More Than Monkeys helps: We specialise in building MVPs quickly but with scalable foundations. This reassures investors that the product won’t collapse under early growth, and that your team is equipped to move from prototype to platform without a full rewrite.

Series A: Proving Product-Market Fit

By Series A, investors expect to see strong signals of product-market fit. This isn’t just growth; it’s evidence that growth is repeatable and sustainable.

The investor lens now shifts: they’re looking for proof that you’ve solved a real problem, found a repeatable way of reaching customers, and built the beginnings of a scalable business.

What investors expect at Series A:

• Strong, repeatable user growth and revenue growth.
• Evidence of retention and customer satisfaction.
• A scalable business model (unit economics starting to make sense).
• A team that can execute beyond the founders.

Where More Than Monkeys helps: We harden your technical platform. Introducing CI/CD, automated testing, observability, and infrastructure-as-code. To investors, this is evidence of discipline: the product isn’t just working today, it’s being built on a foundation that can handle the demands of rapid growth.

Series B: Scaling Operations

If Series A is about proving you can grow, Series B is about scaling that growth without the wheels coming off. Investors want to see you industrialise what’s working: new markets, bigger teams, stronger processes.

What investors expect at Series B:

• Significant and growing revenue.
• Strong unit economics with a path to profitability.
• Organisational maturity: departments, leadership hires, processes.
• Expansion plans (geography, product lines, partnerships).

Where More Than Monkeys helps: We embed scalable engineering and delivery practices. That might mean introducing new architectures, mentoring internal teams, or supporting leadership hires. For investors, it signals that the business won’t stall because of technical debt or delivery bottlenecks.

Series C and Beyond: Market Leadership

Later rounds are less about proving fundamentals and more about cementing dominance. Investors at this stage want to back market leaders; companies with predictable revenue, efficient operations, and the ability to extend into adjacent opportunities.

What investors expect at Series C+:

• Market leadership or a credible path to it.
• Predictable revenue and growth forecasts.
• Operational efficiency at scale.
• Expansion into adjacent markets or acquisitions.

Where More Than Monkeys helps: We align technical strategy with long-term business goals, ensuring systems are resilient, efficient, and audit-ready. This is crucial for investor due diligence ahead of IPOs or acquisitions, where confidence in the technical foundation directly impacts valuation.

In Conclusion

Every round of funding represents a shift in the story you’re telling and the evidence you need to back it up.

• Pre-seed is about the founders.
• Seed is about the product.
• Series A is about traction and repeatability.
• Series B is about scaling.
• Series C+ is about leadership and efficiency.

At each of these stages, More Than Monkeys provides the technical leadership, hands-on engineering, and delivery consultancy that reassures investors their money is in safe hands. From MVPs through to IPO, we make sure your product — and your story — is investor-ready.

Gary Worthington is a software engineer, delivery consultant, and agile coach who helps teams move fast, learn faster, and scale when it matters. He writes about modern engineering, product thinking, and helping teams ship things that matter.

Through his consultancy, More Than Monkeys, Gary helps startups and scaleups improve how they build software — from tech strategy and agile delivery to product validation and team development.

Visit morethanmonkeys.co.uk to learn how we can help you build better, faster.

Follow Gary on LinkedIn for practical insights into engineering leadership, agile delivery, and team performance.