Table of Contents
93
7 min
28.07.2026
What Investors Ask DefTech Founders: 7 Numbers You Need for Due Diligence
Olena Smolikova
Financial expert at Finmap
DefTech teams often show up in front of an investor with strong technology and weak numbers. The product impresses, the demo works, and then the investor asks for a financial model and a history of the metrics — and the scramble begins, with spreadsheets thrown together overnight.
For an investor, that's a red flag. Technology shows you can build a product. The numbers show whether you can run a company and handle its money. Due diligence tests the second one, and building a financial model a week before the meeting is too late.
The good news: the numbers you'll be asked for are known in advance. If you keep your books properly from day one, you walk into the round ready instead of reconstructing your history after the fact.
Why investors look at the numbers, not just the technology
An investor sees the technology at the demo. But whether the company survives to the next round — and whether it burns their money for nothing — is only visible in the numbers. That's why the questions aren't about the drone; they're about how you count.
"It wasn't the technical questions that sank us. What sank us was a simple 'show us your burn rate and runway' — we couldn't state those numbers with confidence, and that was basically where the conversation about the round ended."
The 7 numbers you need to show
These are the metrics you'll almost certainly be asked for. Each one has to be more than a rough guess — it has to be backed by a history of transactions:
| Metric | What it tells the investor |
|---|---|
| Runway | How many months your cash lasts at the current pace |
| Burn rate | How much the company burns every month |
| Revenue and source mix | How much comes from grants, from contracts, from commercial sales |
| Unit margin | The real cost and profitability of the product |
| Contract pipeline | Contracted revenue booked ahead |
| Cash cycle | Government-contract payment delays and receivables |
| Financial model for 12–24 months | Where their money goes and what it buys |
Not one of these numbers is about the technology. They're all about how the company counts its money. And you have to be able not just to name each one, but to show where it came from.
What happens when the numbers aren't there
Missing metrics read one way and one way only: the team is strong in engineering but doesn't control its finances. The consequences are concrete:
- A lower valuation. The risk to the investor is higher — so the price of the round is worse for you.
- A longer process. Due diligence drags on, because the numbers have to be reconstructed and verified.
- Lost trust. If you put your burn rate at "somewhere around," the investor starts doubting everything else.
- A blown round. Some deals never close — because of the chaos in the numbers, not because of the product.
"When we came back to the investor with a clean financial model and a real history of the numbers, the conversation went completely differently. Same people, same product — but now they believed us."
Why you need a finance person here
Pulling these seven numbers together and building a financial model an investor will believe is a job of its own — one an engineering team rarely gets to on its own. A finance person builds the reporting and the metrics so they hold up under due diligence instead of falling apart at the first follow-up question.
For these numbers to exist at all, the books have to be kept from the start, not assembled right before the round. In Finmap, your cash flow, revenue by source, margin and cash cycle all live in one place — and the financial model for the investor is built on real data, not overnight spreadsheets.
📌 Get your numbers ready for the round early. Book a free financial diagnostic from Finmap — a finance specialist will pull your metrics and financial model into a shape that holds up under due diligence. No strings attached.
Share valuable content — become a source of insights
Recommended for Entrepreneurs
FAQ
What are runway and burn rate in plain terms?
Burn rate is how much money the company spends each month beyond what it earns. Runway is how many months your cash on hand lasts at that pace. Together they show the investor how much time the company has before the money runs out.
Do we need a financial model if we're still early stage?
Yes. At an early stage no one expects perfect forecasts, but they do expect you to understand your economics: burn rate, runway, unit cost, where the round's money goes. That's a baseline level of control, not a sign of maturity.
How do we show the revenue mix if we have grants, contracts and commercial sales?
Split the revenue by source and show each one separately. The investor needs to see how much of the income is earmarked grant money, how much is government contracts with payment delays, and how much is steady commercial revenue. These are different kinds of money in terms of quality.
How long does it take to get the numbers ready for a round?
If the books are kept properly from the start, the numbers come together from existing data in a matter of days. If everything is scattered across spreadsheets, reconstructing the history takes weeks — and that's often exactly the time you don't have before a round.
What most often kills a deal at due diligence?
Not a weak product, but chaos in the numbers: the team can't confidently state its burn rate, runway or margin and show where they come from. That undermines trust in everything else and either lowers the valuation or blows up the round.
Any questions left?
We are ready to answer them.
Finmap support
