Friday Q&A - how much money should I expect in my Series [insert round]?
Took this from a recent Carta webinar question, but expanded it to show some interesting change over time.
Q1 2019. Pre-pandemic. The world (of VC) was steadily climbing.
𝗩𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱 𝘀𝗶𝘇𝗲𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗻:
Seed - $2.2M Series A - $7M Series B - $16M Series C - $27M Series D - $50M
𝗩𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝗤𝟭 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝘆𝗲𝗮𝗿:
Seed - $3.1M (up 41% over the whole timeframe) Series A - $6M (down 8%) Series B - $12M (down 22%) Series C - $25M (down 10%) Series D - $24M (down 53%, but on very small volume, wouldn't trust this fully)
In between? There was some crazy stuff happening.
You can see the peak values for each round with the green dots on the heatmap below. Those numbers got pretty damn high across the board.
Overall, I think the picture is clear. Companies who raised in 2021 and early 2022 did so in a venture bubble of unreasonable proportions. Those days are likely not ahead of us (at least for some years).
But a lot of great companies raised in 2019 and those round sizes are certainly achievable now. Yes, interest rates have eaten into the purchasing power of that cash. But especially in seed rounds, investors are still making good bets.
Analysis caveats:
Ignores the fact that the number of rounds has fallen sharply in recent quarters.
All U.S. startups, C-corps, using the Carta cap table platform
Seed rounds defined as first priced equity round, no convertibles included
Happy raising this weekend! Big report out Tuesday, hit the comments for a sign up link.
#cartadata #roundsizes #venturecapital #seedstage #fundraising #startups #founders
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