The Hottest Seed Startup Sectors Right Now by Valuation

The Hottest Seed Startup Sectors Right Now by Valuation

Author:Β 

Peter Walker

|

Read time:Β 

1 minute

Published date:Β 

October 29, 2025

AI applications, hardware, analytics, cybersecurity, and social apps lead seed-stage funding by median round size and pre-money valuation across 1,208 Carta...

LinkedIn: The Hottest Seed Startup Sectors Right Now by Valuation

Hottest startup sectors right now:

  • AI applications | $4.5M median raised at a $20M pre-money valuation

  • Hardware | $5.2M median raised at a $19M pre-money val

  • Analytics/Data | $4.8M median raised at a $18.5M pre-money val

  • Cybersecurity | $4.3M raised at a $16M pre-money

  • Social Apps | $4.2M raised at a $18.8M pre-money

Data: 1,208 seed round raised by US startups using Carta in the last 12 months.

Chart: median round size (x-axis) vs median valuation (y-axis). Bigger bubbles = more deals in that sector.

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  • Personal products

  • Food/Bev

  • Edtech πŸ˜₯

  • Medical Device 😭

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  • About 50% of seed deals this year have been done on SAFEs, the other half on priced equity.

  • Lead investors are taking more share in seeds. The median % of the round for the lead has moved from 51% to 61% over the last 12 months.

  • Typically, founders are selling 20% of the company in their seed rounds.

  • SF deals are different than all the other seed deals.

  • About 30% (maybe slightly higher over time) of seed companies will end up raising a bridge financing.

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#startups #founders #seed

Peter Walker
Author: Peter Walker
Peter Walker runs the Insights team at Carta, focused on discovering key data and narratives across the private capital ecosystem. In a former life, he was a marketing executive for a media analytics startup and led the data visualization team at the Covid Tracking Project.

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