What capital costs

What does that round actually cost you?

Every founder is told to count dilution. Almost nobody counts the months. This adds up both – the share of your company you hand over, and the revenue you never started building while you were pitching.

…

The round

Amount you’d raise (CAD)

Pre-money valuation (CAD)

Assume two follow-on rounds and an option pool

The months

Months spent preparing and pitching

5

New paying customers you could win each month

2

What each pays you per month (CAD)

The alternative

Revenue-based financing, repayment multiple

1.5×

If the company is one day worth (CAD)

Same money, no ownership surrendered – repaid as a share of revenue as it arrives.

What you keep

–

yours no longer yours

What the months cost

–

Side by side

Route	What it costs you	You still own	Cost at your future value

What this does not model

Venture capital does not only buy money. It buys introductions, credibility and a permission to run at a loss that some businesses genuinely need. If you are building something that cannot work until ten million dollars has been spent on it, this calculator is not your answer, and Mosaic is probably not your accelerator.

It also assumes you can actually win those customers. If you have never sold to anyone, that number is a hypothesis, not a plan – which is exactly what ten weeks is for.

Follow-on assumptions when the toggle is on: a 10% option pool at seed, then 20% dilution at each of two later rounds. Revenue is modelled as customers who stay. Nobody’s real numbers are this tidy.

Mosaic Accelerator serves the 99% of startups led by women, transgender, and non-binary founders that are not seeking, and do not reasonably qualify for, venture capital. Revenue is the most non-dilutive capital there is.

What Mosaic costs Apply for Fall 2026