Is Series A the Worst Place to Invest Right Now

Is Series A the Worst Place to Invest Right Now

Author

Peter Walker

|

Read time: 

1 minute

Published date: 

January 10, 2026

Harry Stebbings argues Series A is the worst investment stage today—data on valuation step-ups from seed shows the 3x median vs 6x for top-10% companies.

LinkedIn: Is Series A the Worst Place to Invest Right Now

"Series A is the worst place to be investing today."

(in startups at least, according to our guy Harry Stebbings).

Strong take! What does the data say?

  • The jump from seed valuations to Series A vals is typically around a 3x.

  • But if you go from a median Seed to a top 10% Series A, the valuation spike is more like 6x.

  • "Company progression from seed is minimal"...I mean, I hope not? I realize many rounds get done on hype but hopefully you've done something to deserve a 6x jump in valuation!

  • There are many, many Series A rounds being completed at less than 150x ARR, believe me.

One note here - it's true that Series A valuations are quite high, but seed valuations are too. They never really corrected from the 2021 boom.

Right answer might be...everything is expensive. Go earlier? 😁

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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