Silicon Valley dominates startup fundraising, but what other metros are in the lead at each stage? To investigate, I (Hamza here, covering for Peter while he takes a very well-deserved break!) looked at all VC raised on Carta over the past year.
The chart above shows the top 10 metro areas in the U.S. ranked by the amount of cash raised across four segments of startup life: pre-seed, seed, Series A, and Series B+.
Pre-seed fundraising (on convertible notes and SAFEs) is much more geographically spread out than priced equity. The top 10 metros accounted for 78% of all VC cash at pre-seed, but more than 90% at seed, Series A, and Series B+.
Even with the geographic dispersion at pre-seed, the Bay Area and New York took in half of all cash at that stage.
The Bay Area claimed a significantly higher portion of funding at later stages, with 48.4% at Series B and beyond compared to 28.4% at pre-seed.
Miami's ranking improves the earlier we look, reflecting its emerging ecosystem. On the other hand, San Diego rises further along the funding journey, driven largely by later-stage biotech.
Also, all the metros in these rankings are part of America's top 20 metros by both population and GDP, with one exception: Austin. That's pretty remarkable for "Silicon Hills"!
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