Founders, here's a little insight into the math happening inside the head of your prospective investors.
Let's travel back to the glory days of 2021.
Still dealing with the lingering effects of the pandemic, but in startupland it was all sunshine and rainbows.
You've got a good-looking pitch deck? Here's $10M! You've got actual revenue? How about $50M?
(I realize this situation never actually applied to many founders, but go with me here).
In 2021, the median Series C company was valued at 𝟮𝟵 𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲𝘀 the median valuation of a Seed-stage startup.
Fast forward to now. The same multiple between Seed and Series C is currently 15x.
Some of this has to do with the relative strength in median Seed-stage valuations. Some of it has to do with the rapid decline of Series C valuations. A lot of it is interest rates, investor sentiment, macro headwinds.
But all of it makes an impact on venture fund economics - which in turn affects how VCs decide to deploy capital into new startups.
As a founder, it pays to keep this venture math in mind as we enter the fundraising dash towards the end of the year. Good luck! ____________
If you happen to be at SaaStr today in San Mateo, swing by my talk at 10:30am on Workshop A Stage! Will be covering all sorts of juicy datapoints from across our 38,000+ cap tables.
#cartadata #valuations #startups #Seed #SeriesA #SeriesB #founders
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