Bay Area Advantage Is Much Greater at Late Stage Than Seed

The Bay Area advantage in venture capital is much greater in late-stage startups than it is in early-stage ones.

Took a look at Carta data covering US startup fundraising since January 2023 - $52 billion or so in total capital invested.

The Bay is the leader across every stage, no surprise there.

But SF / Silicon Valley took in a 30% share of capital invested in seed rounds and a much larger 44.6% of capital invested into Series C rounds.

What does this mean?

𝗬𝗼𝘂 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁 (𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗴𝗲𝘁 𝗳𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗳𝗼𝗿) 𝗮 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗻𝘆 𝗮𝗻𝘆𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 - 𝗯𝘂𝘁 𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗰𝗮𝗽𝗶𝘁𝗮𝗹 𝗶𝘀 𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗹𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗴𝗹𝘆 𝗴𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗻 𝘁𝗼 𝗕𝗮𝘆 𝗔𝗿𝗲𝗮, 𝗕𝗼𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗻, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗡𝗬𝗖 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗻𝗶𝗲𝘀.

Sometimes companies started in other locations move to more mature ecosystems explicitly to tap into these larger capital markets.

Note on Boston - its second place finish in Series A thru C is driven to a major degree by large Biotech raises. If you look at software investment only, NYC retakes that 2nd place. But Boston holds on to 3rd even in software alone. Underrated venture market in my view.

Interesting to watch a fairly developed ecosystem like Seattle hold strong in early rounds and fade in growth stages (along with Miami which is really only showing up at the very earliest part of the market). Trend there is mirrored in DC as well.

All these early-stage investments need to grow into the late-stage-worthy companies for this Bay Area advantage to fade - I wouldn't bet on that happening anytime soon!

Ecosystems placing just outside the top 10 included the Research Triangle in NC, Salt Lake City, Dallas, Atlanta, and Philly (not necessarily in that order).

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