What Is a Good Seed to Series A Graduation Rate

What Is a Good Seed to Series A Graduation Rate

Author

Peter Walker

|

Read time: 

1 minute

Published date: 

March 18, 2026

Graduation rates from seed to Series A vary widely by timing, and a very high rate may signal insufficient risk-taking in the initial investment portfolio.

LinkedIn: What Is a Good Seed to Series A Graduation Rate

For seed VCs looking to benchmark your portfolio - what is a "good" graduation rate to Series A?

It depends on the time since the seed round, of course.

Date below, but big caveat: having a very high graduation rate is cool, for sure. But is it actually good? Or is an 80-90% graduation rate an indication that you didn't take enough risk in the initial investment pool?

Worth pondering 🤔

𝗗𝗮𝘁𝗮:

After Year 1

  • 5% is low, 10% is med, 20% is high

After Year 2

  • 15% is low, 25% is med, 35% is high

After Year 3

  • 20% is low, 35% is med, 45% is high

And of course, as is very clear from the color gradients in the chart, the macro matters! It was MUCH harder to graduate from Seed to A in 2023 than it was in 2021 or than it is likely to be this year.

Hope this is a useful guide as you discuss your graduation rate with prospective LPs 🙏

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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