A dozen years ago, the SAFE didn’t exist. In the 2020s, it’s become the dominant mechanism used by early-stage companies to raise capital at the pre-seed stage.

While the high-level numbers have nosed down, other key metrics—like valuations and round sizes—are trending up at the seed stage. And some of these statistics look very different across different common sectors.

After a historically lackluster 2023, the fintech fundraising market has picked back up—through the first nine months of 2024, fintech startups on Carta combined to raise about $3.8 billion in new VC funding.

Using aggregated and anonymized data from tens of thousands of startups, we examine how opportunities to found companies, raise venture funding, and work at startups are distributed according to race and gender.

The number of new tender offers administered by Carta has now increased in five of the past six quarters. That includes Q3, which saw 26 new tender offers—the highest quarterly total since the boom times of 2022.

The number of special-purpose vehicles has grown in recent years, and the size of SPVs is growing—a sign of their growing appeal among private equity and venture capital firms.