Startups Are Older When They Raise Each Funding Round

Venture-backed startups are getting old.

Not like passé, but literally aged. For instance, US companies who raised their Series A rounds in 2019 were a median of 2.1 years old. Those who raised that same round in 2024 were 2.9 years old.

And that pattern of increased time from incorporation holds across basically every stage.

So what’s up?

Startups are taking in more capital in convertible instruments before they ever hit priced equity - so the comparison of seed across those years includes some stretching of the term.

Obviously companies in the venture ecosystem are staying private longer overall. We didn't show it in the chart but you can get medians up to 12 years or even higher for Series E, F, etc. When will that elusive IPO market come back - and will it ever really support small-cap IPOs for tech firms again?

Beyond that, founders are definitely skipping stages. The round names are taken from the term sheets themselves, but there's no reason a founder has to hit every funding milestone. Get a seed, make amazing progress, boom jump up to a Series B.

Founders: expect it to take a decade +/- 20%.

VCs: if the fund model is predicated on a 10-year lifetime...that's probably not enough 😬

#startups #venturecapital #fundraising #IPO

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