Your Raise Probability Score — What It Means and How We Calculate It
NUVC assigns every founder a raise probability score alongside their NuScore. Here is exactly how it is calculated, what the tiers mean, and what you can do to move yours up.
When you submit a pitch deck to NUVC, you receive two numbers: your NuScore and your raise probability. The NuScore tells you how your startup evaluates across seven dimensions. The raise probability translates that into a single question founders actually care about: how likely am I to close this round?
This post explains exactly how we calculate it, what each tier means, and what moves the number.
What Is Raise Probability?
Raise probability is an AI-estimated percentage chance of successfully closing your next funding round, calibrated against real-world AU stage-conversion benchmarks. It is not a promise. It is a data-grounded signal — a way to contextualise your score against what actually happens to founders with similar profiles in the Australian market.
The baseline numbers we calibrate against come from the State of Australian Startup Funding 2025 report:
- Seed → Series A conversion: 22% — only 4 out of 5 seed-funded AU startups reach a Series A.
- Series A → Series B conversion: 35% — the odds improve at later stages as the survivor set is stronger.
These are not pessimistic projections — they are what the data shows across hundreds of AU deals. The raise probability model uses these as anchors and adjusts based on your NuScore, the strength of individual dimensions, and sector context.
How NuScore Feeds Into Raise Probability
NuScore evaluates your deck across seven dimensions: team, problem/market, solution/product, traction, financials, risk/fragility, and conviction. Each dimension is scored 0-10. The overall NuScore is a weighted composite of these.
Raise probability is not simply a linear function of NuScore. It uses a calibrated sigmoid curve that maps score ranges to probability tiers based on how founders with similar scores have performed in the AU market. The inputs are:
- Your overall NuScore and confidence level
- Your weakest and strongest dimension scores
- Your stage (pre-seed, seed, Series A) — conversion benchmarks differ by stage
- Sector context — AI founders face different competition dynamics than HealthTech founders
The Four Probability Tiers
Raise probability outputs fall into four broad tiers:
Calibrated on AU stage-conversion benchmarks from State of Funding 2025. Individual results vary by sector, stage, and market conditions.
A score of 7.5+ puts you in a position where, based on AU historical data, more founders close than do not. Below 6.5, the odds shift against you — not because your idea is wrong, but because the execution signals investors need are not yet visible in your deck or data.
What You Can Do to Improve It
Raise probability is not a fixed verdict. It updates every time your NuScore updates. The most effective way to move it is to address your weakest dimension — not your strongest.
The reasoning is straightforward: if you score 9.0 on team but 5.5 on traction, improving team to 9.2 has almost no effect. Improving traction from 5.5 to 7.0 can move your raise probability by 10-15 percentage points because it removes a red flag that investors would otherwise weight heavily.
Concretely:
- Traction below 6.0: Add quantified metrics. Revenue, retention, activation rate, growth rate week-over-week. Numbers anchor investor confidence more than narratives.
- Financials below 6.0: Model your use of funds with specificity. Show 18-month runway. Demonstrate you understand unit economics even if you are pre-revenue.
- Risk/Fragility below 6.0: Address your most obvious objection directly. Founders who name the risk and explain how they are managing it score significantly higher than founders who ignore it.
- Conviction below 6.5: Conviction comes from founder-market fit signals — lived experience in the problem, domain expertise, customer relationships. If this is low, your pitch needs a stronger "why us" section.
One Number, Grounded in Data
Raise probability does not replace the judgment of an experienced investor. What it does is give you a calibrated anchor — a number derived from real AU conversion data and your specific score profile, not a gut feeling or a pep talk.
The founders who improve their raise probability are the ones who treat it as a diagnostic, not a grade. Upload your deck, find the weakest signal, fix it, and re-score. The number will move.
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