What Investors Actually Want to See in Your Financials

You’re raising a round. You’ve got the deck, the pitch, the vision.

Then the investor asks:
“Can you share your financial model?”

Your stomach drops. You open the spreadsheet you last touched four months ago and scramble to make it look “good.”

Here’s the truth:
Investors don’t need fancy. They need clarity.

After working with dozens of early-stage startups (and reviewing what gets funded), here’s what investors actually care about in your financials – and what you can safely ignore.

✅ 1. A Clear Understanding of Your Burn

Investors want to know:

• How much you're spending each month

• What your fixed vs variable costs are

• How quickly you’ll run out of cash (runway)

You don’t need 400 line items.
But you do need a monthly burn number that aligns with your story – especially if you’re raising to extend it.

💡 Pro tip: Highlight your “cash out” months clearly. Show how funding will change the slope.

✅ 2. A Realistic Growth Forecast

No one believes the perfect hockey stick.

But investors do want to see:

• Monthly revenue or usage growth

• How growth is tied to hiring/spending

• What assumptions you're making (e.g., conversion rates, CAC, pricing)

They’re not looking for precision — they’re looking for thoughtfulness.

💡 Pro tip: Show a “base case” and “stretch case.” Be transparent about assumptions.

✅ 3. Hiring Plan & Cost Impact

Your team is often your biggest cost driver.
Investors want to know:

• Who you’ll hire

• When you’ll hire them

• What impact they’ll have on growth

If you’re raising €500k, they want to see how much of that goes to headcount vs product vs marketing.

💡 Pro tip: Build a hiring tab in your model. Map roles to months and costs.

✅ 4. Use of Funds Breakdown

How will the money be used?

This isn’t just a pie chart – it’s a reflection of your strategy.

Examples investors love:

• 40% Product

• 35% Go-to-market

• 20% Hiring

• 5% Contingency runway

💡 Pro tip: Match the Use of Funds to your slide deck. The model should support the narrative.

✅ 5. Metrics That Show You Know Your Business

You don’t need 50 metrics.

But investors expect to see a few key ones, depending on your model:

For SaaS:

• MRR/ARR

• Churn

• CAC / LTV

• Payback period

For marketplaces:

• GMV

• Take rate

• Supply/demand ratio

For agencies or services:

• Billable utilization

• Margin per client

• Retention

💡 Pro tip: Put these in a dedicated summary tab. Let investors see them at a glance.

✅ 6. Solid Understanding of Unit Economics

Before writing a cheque, investors want to understand:
“Does this business model actually work?”

Unit economics is how you prove it. You’re showing what it costs to serve one customer – and what you earn back.

Depending on your model, this includes:

• CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost)

• LTV (Customer Lifetime Value)

• Gross margin per unit

• Contribution margin over time

• Payback period (how long to recoup CAC)

What they’re looking for:

• Do you make more than you spend (eventually)?

• Do margins improve with scale?

• Are there levers to improve efficiency?

💡 Pro tip: Keep it simple. A 5-line unit economics table can say more than 10 tabs of forecasts.

❌ What Investors Don’t Need:

• Thousands of rows of granular data

• “Vanity” metrics with no context

• Overly optimistic, unbacked assumptions

• Old-school accounting reports (P&L, balance sheet — unless they ask)

They’re betting on your story, your team and your ability to execute – not on spreadsheet perfection.

The Bottom Line

Investors are busy.
They’re reviewing dozens of pitches a week.

Your goal isn’t to impress them with complexity.
Your goal is to earn their confidence through clarity, realism and thoughtfulness.

📥 If you’re not sure where to start, we’ve built models and investor-ready snapshots for dozens of founders.

You only get one shot to show your numbers — let’s make it count.