Board Financial Review · Q2 FY26 · Data, KPI & Finance

18 Months of Runway, By Design

OpenDesign's burn, runway, and the plan that keeps the project independent

This Review

Four Acts, One Number

  1. 01 The Headline Answer Runway holds at 18 months
  2. 02 The Metric Proof Cash, burn, coverage
  3. 03 The Driver Tree What moves the burn
  4. 04 The Forecast & The Ask The recommended move
01

The Headline Answer

Runway holds at 18 months without a new raise

The Answer

Structurally Low Burn Is the Reason Runway Holds

  • BYOK shifts an estimated $2.1M/yr of model-inference cost onto users, off our P&L entirely
  • Apache-2.0 core lets 300+ community contributors ship features we never pay engineering time for
  • Local-first architecture removes the cloud-hosting bill that would otherwise scale with every new user
  • Net effect: burn multiple sits at 0.4x the industry median for our ARR stage
$61K/MO · 18-MONTH RUNWAY

Before · Traditional Cost Model

Cloud Inference On Our Books

  • Model inference fully on the company's P&L: ~$2.1M/yr
  • Compute scales linearly with every new user
  • Single vendor, no BYOK, no cost pass-through
  • Effective burn: ~$310K/month

After · OpenDesign's Structure

Cost Shifted Off the P&L

  • BYOK: users bring their own model keys, inference cost off our books
  • Local-first: no per-seat hosting bill to carry
  • Apache-2.0 core: community ships ~40% of new features unpaid
  • Effective burn: ~$61K/month (-80%)
02

The Driver Tree

What actually moves monthly burn

Payroll Minus Community Leverage Equals Burn

Cash In
sponsorships · enterprise support · grants
funds
Core Team Payroll
11 FTE · $54K/wk
offset by
Community Contributions
300+ contributors · unpaid
reduces to
Net Monthly Burn
$61K/mo · 18-mo runway
Cash Reserve
$1.1M on hand today
divided by burn
Runway
18 months at current burn
Cash source Cost driver Net outcome

02 · The Metric Proof

The Board's Four Numbers

$1.1M
Cash Reserve
Above the $400K board floor
18 mo
Runway at Current Burn
+6 mo vs. last review
$61K
Net Monthly Burn
-80% since the BYOK shift
3.1x
Contributor Leverage
unpaid dev-hours vs. payroll $

Two Enterprise Sponsors Turn 18 Months of Runway into 30+

$640K
$780K
$920K
$1.05M
$1.2M
$1.4M+
BaselineQ1Q2Q3Q4Q6 w/ sponsors
“
Runway isn't destiny once you control your own burn.
— CFO, OpenDesign Foundation board

04 · The Forecast & The Ask

Approve the 12-Month Reserve Floor, No New Raise This Cycle

Lock two enterprise sponsors by Q3 to extend runway past 30 months · hold headcount at 11 FTE · next review in 90 days