A board-grade verdict, signed in twelve minutes.

Roadmap leverage is real but soft. Proceed only if three PE design-partner LOIs land before term sheet, per §B.^1,7 Holding back surfaces a six-month gap a competitor with capital fills.

Runway supports 8 months at current burn.² Raise at $200M is viable; hold for LOIs and lever the round to $240 – 260M. Capital deployed against revenue inflection ≥ 1.6× pre-money discount.¹¹

Market narrative favors growth over capital efficiency in this window.^4,13 Raise at $230M, deploy 30% into brand authority before two named competitors lock category positioning. Six months of waiting concedes the narrative.

Ops can absorb 1.6× headcount through Q3 without re-architecting on-call rotations.¹⁷ Capital plan supports the raise at baseline; the operational ceiling is not the constraint here.

Infra is at the elbow of the cost curve.¹⁹ The $200M raise re-prices a 24-month engineering plan that was already de-risked in the last sprint review.²² Waiting 6 months delays no architectural decision.

Proceed only if Q3 net-revenue retention prints ≥ 118%.²⁷ Below that, the round is a marker round and the valuation is the ceiling for 36 months. The dissent on narrative timing is a real risk only if competitor positioning consolidates this quarter.

Team can absorb the hiring plan at this raise without compensation re-banding.³¹ The retention model is intact through 18 months post-close. A delayed raise creates a hiring gap that the search market won't forgive.

Proceed only after the export-control posture⁴⁰ on two contested SKUs is reconciled with the lead's diligence checklist. Otherwise re-priced at term sheet — a foreseeable, avoidable haircut.