How many months of runway should a pre-seed round buy: 12 or 18?

18 months. That is the typical runway CEE founders raising pre-seed planned for when they applied to BADideas in 2026 so far, against 12 months in 2025.

The figures

In BADideas application data, Baltic founders plan the same as the rest of CEE: a median of 18 months.

What is changing

18 months has become the standard plan: every quarter shown except one sits at or near it.

What it means for you

• Plan for 18 months. It is what most founders around you plan for, and it leaves about six months to raise the next round before the money runs out.
• 12 months is the short end. A quarter of founders raising pre-seed plan for 12 months or less. That works only if the next milestone is close and clear.
• Count the raise inside the runway. A seed round takes months. Work back from the milestone your seed investor will want to see, then add the time to raise.

Also answers

Is 12 months of runway enough for a pre-seed round?

It is the short end. A quarter of CEE founders raising pre-seed plan for 12 months or less; the median is 18.

How much runway should a seed round buy?

CEE founders raising seed plan for a median of 18 months, and a quarter plan for 22 or more.

How we measured it

• Source: applications founders sent to BADideas in 2025 and 2026 to date. CEE means the company is in a Central or Eastern European country. Runway is what the application says the round will buy. The stage is the founder's own label.
• Limits: these are founders who applied to one CEE pre-seed fund, so the sample leans towards companies that see themselves as a fit for it. A single quarter can swing, so read the change between years first. Runway is planned, not what founders actually got.
• Read: 26 September 2026. Updated every quarter.

Who we are

We are a pre-seed and seed fund for founders in Central and Eastern Europe. We have built and sold companies ourselves, and since 2022 we have backed more than 40.

We back founders who see something about their market that others do not see yet. They want to change how a whole industry works, start with something small, and learn fast.

Good founders rarely fail on the idea or the product. They fail on selling it. So that is where we help: operators who grew Zendesk, Square and Scale AI work on your go-to-market.

Raising soon? Get your deck read the way our deal leads read it

Read next

• How much are pre-seed startups in Central and Eastern Europe raising right now?
• How do pre-seed startups split the money they raise?
• How much do startups raise at MVP stage compared with once they have revenue?