As a fellow swiss, I wouldn't recommend raising in Switzerland if you can compete in better markets like US. Swiss investors tend to invest at way lower valuati

As a fellow swiss, I wouldn't recommend raising in Switzerland if you can compete in better markets like US. Swiss investors tend to invest at way lower valuations and are a lot more "stuck up" / don't understand what early-stage startups are really about (there are exceptions of course). This is from experience btw. Book yourselves a flight to SF and try to run into people there [1]. Re. financial projections, you should understand _why_ you are raising. It is very unlikely that your product vision as of now is going to work. The game is about failing as quickly as possible and iterating. Many startups pivot to something different from what they started with. Hence, raising should not be about how much you need to execute on your current plans, but how much you need to validate whether the plan works, with some ~2y of runway to fail fast & iterate. Once you validate that your ideas work, it will be much easier to raise a bigger Series A and execute fast. Also, don't forget that raising isn't just about money, it's about smart money: Raising from reputable angels and funds can give you excellent connections that grant you a competitive advantage. E.g. raise from people with high reputation and connections in your target market, raise from people who are connected in the AI space, etc. -- [1]: Being labeled a "swiss startup" does give you a competitive edge re. distribution in the regional market since the swiss are into that sort of thing. It can be a worthwhile strategy to rely on that, but chances that you scale out of it are slim, so you'll at best end up with some mediocre SMB. Choose the hard path, it will teach you how to succeed.