Committed Amount
Capital that investors have agreed to invest — including both soft commitments (verbal / handshake / IOI) and hard commitments (signed term sheet or executed subscription docs). Treat this as the round-progress odometer. Common pitfall: soft commitments are notoriously squishy — every published fundraising postmortem (per First Round Review and Bessemer founder essays) warns that founders over-count soft commits. Board-best-practice is to track soft vs hard separately or to define a haircut convention (e.g. 50% of soft) at the start of the round. — Fundraising KPI, I'mBoard-authored (editorial tier).
I'mBoard-authored (editorial tier)
No public third-party standard anchors this KPI yet, so I'mBoard authors and maintains the definition — transparently labeled as editorial tier. See the ontology methodology for the published vs editorial tier system and the back-attribution workstream.
Rogue ID: fundraising.committed_amount
Type: Currency
Domain: Fundraising
Definition
Capital that investors have agreed to invest — including both soft commitments (verbal / handshake / IOI) and hard commitments (signed term sheet or executed subscription docs). Treat this as the round-progress odometer. Common pitfall: soft commitments are notoriously squishy — every published fundraising postmortem (per First Round Review and Bessemer founder essays) warns that founders over-count soft commits. Board-best-practice is to track soft vs hard separately or to define a haircut convention (e.g. 50% of soft) at the start of the round.
Formula
Sum of all investor commitments (soft + hard). Define and document the soft-vs-hard convention per round — some companies report only hard commitments to the board, others report a blended number with footnote.Why it matters
Primary leading indicator for whether the round will close on target and on time. Pacing against target_raise and planned_close_date tells the board whether intervention is needed.
How to interpret
Healthy rounds typically hit 50% committed at the round midpoint and 80%+ before final closing mechanics begin. A committed amount stuck below 30% past the midpoint usually signals a re-pricing or scope-cut conversation with the board.
Calculation policy
How an AI agent should compute this KPI from messy company data. Free-text rules consumed at reasoning time — not a deterministic DSL. The most common ways to get this wrong are listed under Common miscomputations.
Inclusion rules
- Capital investors have AGREED to invest in the current round — both soft commitments (verbal / handshake / IOI) and hard commitments (signed term sheet or executed subscription docs).
- The round-progress odometer: tracked against
target_raiseandplanned_close_datefor pacing.
Exclusion rules
- Cash not yet agreed — pipeline interest that has not produced a commitment (that is
investors_in_pipelineengagement, not committed capital). - Not
total_received— a commitment is a promise; received is cash wired and cleared. - Not
target_raise— the target is the ask, committed is progress toward it.
Required inputs
- Per-investor commitment amounts.
- Soft-vs-hard flag per commitment, and the documented haircut convention for the round (e.g. 50% of soft).
- Commitment dates (to age soft commits).
Data-source priority
- Executed subscription docs / signed term sheets for hard commitments.
- The CEO's investor tracker for soft commitments — apply the agreed haircut and footnote the convention.
Edge cases
- Soft commitments are squishy: every published fundraising postmortem warns founders over-count them. Track soft vs hard separately or apply a documented haircut.
- A soft commit that goes cold: age it out rather than carrying it indefinitely.
- Over-commitment beyond target (oversubscription): record the full committed figure and let allocation decisions reduce it to round size.
Validation checks
- committed_amount ≥ total_received (you cannot receive more than was committed).
- committed_amount ≤ total_round_size once the round is allocated.
- Healthy pacing: ~50% committed at the round midpoint, 80%+ before final closing mechanics — below 30% past midpoint signals a re-pricing / scope conversation.
Common miscomputations
- Counting soft commitments at face value with no haircut — inflates the round-progress odometer.
- Reporting committed as if it were received and extending the runway forecast on capital that has not been wired.
- Including stale or ghosted investor "interest" as a commitment.
Related KPIs
fundraising.target_raisefundraising.total_receivedfundraising.round_completion_pctfundraising.investors_in_pipelinefundraising.minimum_close_amount
Source
I'mBoard editorial — authored and maintained by I'mBoard, first published 2026-04-01. No third-party standard is cited for this KPI; when one emerges, the definition is back-attributed and promoted to the published tier (a minor version bump). Read the ontology methodology for the published vs editorial tier system, attribution rules, and dispute process.
Stage relevance
| Company stage | Priority |
|---|---|
| Pre-Seed | Core |
| Seed | Core |
| Series A | Core |
| Series B | Core |
| Series C+ | Core |
Suggested for stages: Pre-Seed, Seed, Series A, Series B, Series C+.
Default owning functions
- Finance
Machine-readable
- This KPI as JSON:
/api/ontology/fundraising/committed_amount.json - All Fundraising KPIs:
/api/ontology/fundraising.json - Full catalog:
/api/ontology/index.json
Fundraising Assumptions
Explicit assumptions underlying the fundraising plan: valuation expectation, lead-investor probability, time-to-close, post-close runway, and what changes if any assumption breaks. Common pitfall: assumptions are made implicitly and only surface in the postmortem. Boards should require this section to be reviewed each update — a board update where assumptions never change suggests they are not being tested, not that they are correct. — Fundraising KPI, I'mBoard-authored (editorial tier).
Outstanding Convertible Amount
Total principal value of SAFEs and convertible notes outstanding that have not yet converted to equity. These convert at the next priced round, typically at a discount or valuation cap (per the standard Y Combinator SAFE templates and the National Venture Capital Association convertible-note model). Common pitfall: a SAFE stack quietly accumulating between rounds can convert into 15–25% dilution at the next priced round, surprising founders who modeled "we only sold 10% in this priced round" math. Boards should always see the fully-diluted cap table including SAFE conversion. — Fundraising KPI anchored to Y Combinator Post-Money SAFE (2018+ standard form).