Just Raised a Seed Round? The First 90 Days of Startup Finance
By Douglas Kohn, MBA, CPA
On October 13, Miami-founded Dapta announced a $6 million seed round led by Chingona Ventures, bringing total funding to $7.4 million. According to Refresh Miami, Dapta's AI agent has passed 200,000 users, revenue has doubled over the past six months, and annual revenue this year is expected to exceed $4 million. The company has about 50 employees and contractors and plans to expand hiring in South Florida in 2027.
It's a good story, and it's part of a busy month for local tech. It's also a useful moment to talk about what happens to a startup's back office after the wire hits.
A seed round changes who reads your financials. Before, it was mostly the founders. After, it's a board, institutional investors and, before long, the next round's diligence team. Here's what a controller would put in place in the first 90 days.
1. Get revenue recognition right while it's still simple
Dapta's model, as described in the coverage, includes a free tier and paid subscriptions starting at $99 a month. Models like that look simple, but the accounting questions show up quickly.
Annual plans billed upfront are deferred revenue, recognized ratably, not cash revenue in the month collected. Setup fees, usage-based charges and bundled add-ons may need to be evaluated as separate performance obligations under ASC 606 (Deloitte's revenue recognition roadmap covers the five-step model). Free-tier users cost money to serve but generate no revenue, so their hosting and AI inference costs need to be tracked.
Build a deferred revenue rollforward now (beginning balance, billings, revenue recognized, ending balance) and tie it to your billing system every month. It's the first schedule a Series A investor will ask for.
2. Separate cost of revenue from operating expense
For an AI company, gross margin is the number investors scrutinize most. Model API fees, cloud hosting, telephony and customer support all belong in cost of revenue if they serve paying customers. Put them in operating expenses and your gross margin looks better than it is, until diligence reclassifies it.
Set up the chart of accounts so these costs are coded correctly from day one, and review the largest vendor bills monthly. Cost of revenue that grows faster than revenue is something you want to catch before your board does.
3. Make the metrics tie to the books
Founders love dashboards: ARR, MRR, net revenue retention, CAC payback. Investors love them too, as long as they reconcile to the general ledger.
A simple discipline: every month, reconcile MRR from the billing system to recognized subscription revenue in the GL, and document the differences (credits, refunds, annual plans, FX). If your pitch deck ARR can't be bridged to the financial statements, it will cost you credibility in the next raise.
4. Track people costs the way a growing team requires
With a team split between employees and contractors across states and countries, payroll gets complicated fast. Confirm worker classification, register in each state where employees work, and keep contractor agreements and W-9s or W-8BENs on file. Track stock option grants in a cap table tool and book stock-based compensation expense under ASC 718 (see Deloitte's share-based payment roadmap). Auditors will ask for it.
Coding people costs by function (R&D, sales and marketing, G&A) also matters. It drives the board P&L, the burn analysis, and, as noted below, tax planning.
5. Build a cash runway model, not just a budget
Cash is the only constraint that ends a startup. A 13-week cash forecast plus a monthly 18 to 24 month runway model should be standard after any raise. Update both monthly with actuals, show burn multiple (net burn divided by net new ARR), and tie hiring plans to milestones rather than calendar dates.
Treasury matters too. Spread deposits over insured limits or use a sweep program, and set a written policy for what idle cash can be invested in.
Tax planning considerations
For software companies, Section 174 is part of planning again. Legislation enacted in 2025 restored immediate deduction of domestic research and experimental costs, after several years of required amortization, and some smaller companies may be able to revisit prior years. The federal R&D credit can also be relevant, and qualifying startups may be able to apply part of it against payroll taxes even before they have income tax to offset.
Both depend on records that are hard to rebuild after the fact: time tracking or reasonable allocations of engineering effort, project documentation and clean coding of contractor and cloud costs. Founders should talk through these items with their tax advisor early, and keep the books in a shape that supports whatever position they take.
The takeaway
Raising money proves the market believes in the product. Clean books prove the company can be trusted with the next check. The startups that move fastest from seed to Series A usually don't have the fanciest finance stacks. They have a monthly close that's on time, metrics that tie, and a runway model leadership actually uses.
At SoFla Prime Consulting, we provide fractional CFO, controller and accounting support to South Florida companies, including venture-backed startups building their first real finance function. If you've just raised and want your back office to keep up, reach out.
Sources
Riley Kaminer, "Dapta raises $6M to give Main Street businesses an AI advantage," Refresh Miami, Oct. 13, 2026: https://refreshmiami.com/news/dapta-raises-6m-to-give-main-street-businesses-an-ai-advantage/
South Florida Digest, "Ondas and Palantir Launch Regna AI as Miami Funding Rounds Signal a Strong Month for Local Tech": https://southfloridadigest.com/ondas-and-palantir-launch-regna-ai-as-miami-funding-rounds-signal-a-strong-month-for-local-tech/
Deloitte, Roadmap: Revenue Recognition (ASC 606): https://dart.deloitte.com/USDART/home/publications/roadmap/revenue-recognition
Deloitte, Roadmap: Share-Based Payment Awards (ASC 718): https://dart.deloitte.com/USDART/home/publications/roadmap/share-based-payments
Photo: Glen Beck and Betty Snyder program the ENIAC, U.S. Army photo, public domain: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Glen_Beck_and_Betty_Snyder_program_the_ENIAC_in_building_328_at_the_Ballistic_Research_Laboratory.jpg
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