Well, that really got out of hand fast.
Take yourself back to 2018. Seed-stage was still a pretty new thing in venture (Series A used to be the first round, but seed has sprouted).
Median post-money valuation...$10M. Clean and easy, raising maybe $1.5M-$2M.
The 95th percentile valuation, for the most in-demand companies was $30.6M.
Fast forward through 7 years of rollercoaster times in venture and you get to seed stage today.
Median valuation: $20M post-money
95th percentile: $80M post-money (!)
You might reasonably say, "well are these 𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘶𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 seed rounds? Cmon, these are clearly Series A". And maybe they are! But there's no set definition of seed and we're taking the round names from the literal round documents & share classes...so ya, they count.
Final point is that the upper end of seed valuations have risen faster than the median. The gap between median and 95th pct is now 4x, when 3x used to be the range.
And the 99th pct is even higher.
Venture is about outliers, but not every seed stage outlier ends up being a winner in the long stretch of time.
Stay safe out there 😇
#startups #founders #seed
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