Enough to show substantial, irrevocable commitment relative to the total start-up budget, ideally most of it, plus the consular visa fee, any reciprocity fee, and professional and translation costs outside the investment.
Commitment is measured in dollars already out of his hands
Substantiality compares the amount invested with the total cost of establishing the enterprise, and commitment looks at whether the funds are beyond recall. For a managed-services company whose realistic start-up budget is US$150,000, a file showing US$120,000 spent or contractually committed on lease, equipment, licences, insurance and a payroll reserve in the U.S. account presents well; a file showing US$20,000 spent and the rest in a Canadian savings account does not.
Application costs sit outside the investment: the machine-readable visa application fee, a reciprocity fee if applicable to Canadians at the time, the cost of preparing the plan and the source-of-funds package, translations of French bank records, and travel to the interview. Verify current fee amounts on the State Department pages. Money spent on the application is not investment and should not be listed as such.
Hypothetical example: a commercial window-cleaning company has a low start-up budget and plans to invest only a small deposit while keeping the rest liquid. There is no fixed dollar floor, but a small percentage of a modest business cost can be difficult to defend. The first review should compare the amount already committed with the documented total cost and show why the remaining operating funds are needed.
A quoted expense is not the same as a paid or binding obligation.