Founders and VCs often treat low valuations as a red flag, a signal that something is fundamentally wrong. Venture runs on momentum and pattern recognition. So if a valuation is notably low, the market assumes thin competition, that other investors passed, or the team lacked the leverage to command a higher valuation. But at the formative stages, there’s likely no revenue or utility to substantiate any valuation. It’s a mathematical output of how much cash the team needs and how much equity…