Raising a Series B? Here’s what investors want to see in your numbers

You’ve made it past Series A. That means you’ve proven there’s demand, built a team, and started to carve out a position in your market. Series B is all about scaling up — faster growth, deeper penetration, and getting the business ready for serious scale or eventual exit.

But to get there, investors will scrutinise your numbers more closely than ever.

Here’s what they’ll be looking for.

Predictable revenue growth
At Series B, investors want to see that your growth is not just impressive — it’s repeatable and predictable.

• ARR/MRR: You’re likely at £3–£5 million ARR at this point, or more depending on your sector.
• Growth rate: Expectation is typically 2x year-on-year growth or better. More important than raw speed is consistency and scalability.
• Revenue mix: Investors want to see the shift toward high-quality, sticky revenue — think expansion revenue, upsells, and strong NRR (Net Revenue Retention).

Deep customer insight
It’s no longer enough to know that customers are buying — you need to understand why they’re buying, how long they stay, and how you’ll get more of them.

• NRR (Net Revenue Retention): This is key. Over 100% is expected — north of 120% is excellent.
• Segmentation: Investors want to see data sliced by cohort, channel, segment, geography — all of it.
• Customer success: Strong onboarding, low churn, high engagement. Ideally, your success team is driving expansion revenue too.

Operational efficiency
By now, you should have built a machine. Investors want to see that your ops are tight and that your unit economics are improving as you grow.

• CAC efficiency: CAC should be decreasing or at least stable as scale kicks in.
• Sales efficiency: Your sales team should be delivering — predictable conversion rates, fast ramp-up, short cycles.
• Gross margin: Holding strong (70%+ for SaaS) and improving with scale.
• Team leverage: Revenue per employee and output per function matter now — bloated teams without output will raise red flags.

Capital discipline
You’ve raised before, and you’ll raise again — but the best investors want to back teams who treat capital as a growth tool, not a crutch.

• • Burn multiple (net burn / net new ARR): At Series B, <1.5 is considered healthy, <1 is great. You want to show you know how to turn spend into ARR.
  • Runway and cash planning: You should have a clear view of your cash position, how long it lasts, and how it aligns with your next major milestone or raise.
  • Scenario modelling: Investors want to see how you handle upside, downside, and mid-case realities.

• M&A: You might start looking at strategic acquisitions to hasten product development, market penetration or simply to add new revenue to the business. But deploying capital on M&A activity should be well thought out and the return on investment needs to be well understood.

Your numbers should inspire confidence
Series B investors don’t just want to know what happened — they want to know what’s next, and how confident they can be that you’ll get there.

At EmergeOne, we help you turn financial data into a growth story that lands. Whether it’s board packs, investor models, or weekly metrics dashboards, we build the tools and insight that give investors confidence — and give you back your time.

If you’re heading into a Series B raise and want your numbers to speak clearly, let’s have a chat.