You Do Not Have to Move to Bay Area to Raise Your Seed Round

Founders - you don't 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 to move to the Bay Area in order to raise your seed round.

And if you stay where you are, you aren't damning yourself to a low valuation by default.

Data below is taken from 2,562 primary seed rounds raised over the last 12 months. Software companies only, includes AI companies.

• White bar is the 25th percentile to 75th percentile in post-money valuation

• Circle is the median valuation

Some obvious things stand out. Yes, the Bay Area median valuation is the highest and the upper end of the range is beyond other ecosystems.

But the overlap between many places is quite large! The distributions are wide and there are seed investments being done at all sorts of dollar values across the country.

𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗱𝗲𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀

• Competitive set matters. If you're in Chicago, you may be speaking with VCs who focus more on the Midwest and therefore see different deals than SV VCs.

• There's a story that Bay Area VCs invest earlier on with less traction...maybe some of them. But lately the bar for what qualifies as a worthy seed round has risen basically everywhere.

• Volume is the other consideration. There is a higher concentration of capital in the Bay, more round activity, more buzz. It may be easier to strike up more useful conversations.

A thousand other factors come into play. The undeniably cool part is I don't think this chart looks anything like this 10 years ago. So many ecosystems can support early stage startups these days.

Good luck on the round!

#startups #VC #founders #fundraising