Calculate exactly how many months your startup can survive on current cash, when you'll run out of money, and when you need to start your next fundraise.
Understanding Startup Runway
Runway is the number of months before your startup runs out of cash. It's the single most important metric for any pre-profitability startup.
Net Burn Rate = Total Monthly Expenses − Monthly Revenue
Runway (months) = Current Cash Balance / Net Burn Rate
Start Fundraising When = Runway < 12 months (India takes 3–6 months to close a round)
Default Date = Today + Runway months
The golden rule: start your next fundraise when you have 12 months of runway left — not 6. Indian VC processes typically take 3–6 months from first meeting to funds in bank. Starting too late is the #1 fundraising mistake founders make.
Startup Runway FAQs
There is no universal "good" burn rate — it depends on your funding stage and growth. A pre-seed startup should burn ₹2–8L/month. Seed stage ₹8–25L/month. Series A ₹25–1Cr/month. The key metric is burn multiple: Net Burn / Net New ARR. Below 1.5× is efficient; above 3× means you're burning too much to grow. Focus on revenue growing faster than burn.
Five ways to extend runway: (1) Cut costs — renegotiate office rent, move to work-from-home, reduce tools/SaaS subscriptions. (2) Accelerate revenue — focus on enterprise deals with upfront annual contracts. (3) Reduce team — hard but often necessary; keep only core revenue-generating roles. (4) Revenue-based financing (RBF) — for startups with ₹10L+ monthly revenue. (5) Venture debt — available post-seed from Trifecta Capital, InnoVen, and others.
Raise when you have: (1) 12+ months runway remaining, (2) clear milestones hit from the previous round, (3) a compelling narrative with data (3–6 months of strong growth metrics), and (4) ideally some warm introductions to target investors. Never raise when you're desperate — investors sense it. Start introductions 15–18 months before you run out of cash.