Sometimes we just gotta remember how wild 2021 got in startups.
Lately, startup fundraising has been flat. Q3 2023 = $16 billion invested.
Q4 2023 = $16 billion invested.
Q1 2024 = $16 billion invested (might get to $18B when it's all said and done).
So that's not very fun.
But every time I build this chart, the thing that jumps out is just how crazy things got in 2021.
Interest rates were effectively nil, money was free, the good times were rolling - and the invested capital got truly out of hand. $228 billion in a single year to startup on Carta.
It's very difficult to avoid comparison to recent years - as market prognosticators, for founders, for investors - but in many ways I think it's healthier to refrain from comparing now to the boom time. It was the true outlier across perhaps the whole history of startups.
Full data for Q1 2024 out in our State of Private Markets report next week - subscribe to our newsletter to get the data in your inbox: https://lnkd.in/gNa_Dk-F
#cartadata #fundraising #startups #founders #venturecapital
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