Raise money as late as possible to keep more equity. Most prototypes cost little to build, so skip the pressure to fund early. What matters is how you talk to investors and negotiate terms, not the calendar.
What's your perspective on when a company, an early-stage company, should raise money and when shouldn't they?
Well, as we all understand, the later they raise money, the less they lose the stock and the shares in their company. It's not about the moment when they raise money. It's mostly about how they communicate with investors and under which terms. And of course, the later the better. Sometimes people say, oh, we need to raise money to to build a prototype. No, you don't, because in most cases you may build a prototype to do a market test for almost no money. You just have to think about it, how to do it. The prototype have to deliver the same feeling as your product or service, not to become your product or service, or even not minimum viable product, because people pay for feelings, not for products and services.
