In my post, Overview Of Fundraising Stages, I laid out a set of generic milestones for each stage in the fundraising process.  While this should provide you with some guidance about the fundraising process, the process can vary greatly for a given company.

The milestones that I laid out for each round of financing are high-level guidelines, not more. There are always exceptions. For example, companies that are just a piece of paper and an entrepreneur have received Series A capital without raising friends and family or a seed round.

Be flexible.  When designing your fundraising strategy simply try to do what would be best for building your company. However, you may find that investors don't agree with your approach.  As a result, you need to be prepared to be flexible and change course if all of the investors recommend (or require) a different process, meaning that more milestones are hit before a specific financing round can be completed.

Comments

[Rob Sandie]

I feel investors usually always want to change up the terms or method of going about the raise. Good point on being flexible.

[Fundraising companies]

Yes, fundraising process is flexible and very problematic in managing also.