https://techcrunch.com/2022/12/12/how-much-to-raise/

The correct amount of money to raise for your startup is “as much as you need to hit the milestones to raise your next round of funding.” It isn’t rocket science, and yet, the vast majority of founders I talk to are very fuzzy about exactly how much money that is, and there are a lot of misconceptions about how you figure out how much you need to raise.

To be a startup on the VC treadmill is a staged de-risking of a business proposition. In other words: Right now, your company is very risky indeed because certain parts of your business are unknown. This is why you need to put together a minimum viable product (which is neither minimum, nor viable, or a product) to test out part of your business model. Once those things are tested and proven, the risk of the business goes down, and you can raise your next round of funding to take on the next part of the journey.