Key takeaways
- Higher valuations don’t mean easier fundraising: capital is concentrating in fewer deals.
- Pre-seed can happen before revenue, but founders still need evidence of demand, a credible team and a prototype.
- Seed valuations rose 33% between Q4 2024 and Q4 2025, while Q2 2026 median dilution remained substantial at 19.4%.
- Series A requires stronger evidence of repeatable growth, retention and sustainable economics; ARR alone is insufficient.
- Plan runway around reaching the next fundable milestone and completing the raise. Time between rounds is different from time spent fundraising.
Venture money is flowing, but into fewer companies. Startups on Carta raised $30.4 billion in Q1 2026, ahead of the same point last year, and more than 60% of it went to AI companies.
At pre-seed the pattern is even sharper. U.S. startups on Carta raised $3.19 billion across roughly 11,500 SAFEs and notes in Q2 2026, against $3.22 billion across 14,825 instruments a year earlier: similar money, about a fifth fewer deals. The average pre-seed instrument reached a record $276,000. (Carta, State of Pre-Seed Q2 2026)
Pricing tells a split story. Median seed and Series A valuations are up year on year, but the medians blend two very different markets. In Q1 2026, an AI foundational-model company raising a Series A was priced at around a $300 million median valuation, against roughly $55 million for a non-AI startup. And every one of these medians describes companies that closed. They say much less about the founders still searching for a lead investor.
So the useful question is not how much companies are raising, but how to become fundable at the next stage: what evidence investors expect, how much ownership the round might cost, and whether the cash will last long enough to deliver the next milestone.
The benchmarks at a glance
| Pre-seed | Seed | Series A | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Typical structure | SAFE (93% of rounds) | Priced round | Priced round |
| Median round size | Average instrument $276K | $4.5M | $14.7M |
| Valuation reference | $12.5M median post-money cap ($500K–$999K SAFEs); $35M for SAFEs above $2.5M. For comparison: Israel pre-seed rounds have a $6.8M median cap (Fusion, 2025) | $23.9M median post-money | $76.3M median post-money ($93.5M for SaaS) |
| Median dilution | Depends on how many SAFEs are stacked | 19.4% | 18.7% |
| What investors want to see | A real problem, the right team, a prototype or design partners | Paying, recurring customers beyond the founder’s network | Repeatable growth. In B2B, conversations increasingly start at $3.5M–$5M ARR (my observation) |
U.S. Carta data, Q2 2026, the latest quarter Carta has published. Israel figure from Fusion’s 2025 pre-seed report. Full caveats in the data note at the end.
A quick note before going further: these figures come mostly from U.S.-headquartered Carta customers, and Q3 2026 data has not yet been published (Carta typically releases quarterly figures several weeks after quarter end). They are reference points for Israeli and European founders, not local market averages.
I have explored related questions in 2023–2024 B2B SaaS Benchmarks and Startup Benchmarks, originally published in 2019. Those posts cover choosing metrics for different business models; the financing figures here use the most recent sources available.
I put together the IsraelVC infographic below using Carta’s U.S. startup data and fundraising research from Dropbox DocSend. Here is how I would read it as a founder, and what I think it means for early-stage investors.
Pre-seed: revenue can wait; evidence cannot
At pre-seed, investors can back a company before it has revenue. The founder still needs to reduce uncertainty: is the problem important, does the team understand it, and is there a credible starting point for a product?
Useful evidence might include a prototype, thoughtful customer discovery, design partners or early product usage. These signals carry different weight. A customer saying an idea sounds interesting is a weaker signal than a customer committing time, data or money to test it.
In B2B, I pay particular attention to whether a design partner has a real problem, an identifiable budget owner and a reason to adopt the product. For consumer or gaming startups, usage and retention may matter more than any ARR target.
The financing structure is now close to standardised. In Q2 2026, 93% of pre-seed rounds on Carta used SAFEs (95% by capital), and 91% of those SAFEs were post-money. The median post-money cap for raises in the $500K–$999K band was $12.5 million, while SAFEs above $2.5 million carried a $35 million median cap, up 40% year on year. (Carta’s SAFE analysis) Much of that top end is AI: AI companies took 49% of all pre-seed dollars in H1 2026.
Israeli founders should expect a different picture. Fusion’s Israeli Pre-Seed Report covering 2025, published in March 2026 and drawing on 70 Israeli investors and nearly 1,200 teams, reports a $6.8 million median post-money valuation cap and a $7.25 million average. It is the most recent local dataset available. The sample and period differ from Carta’s, so the two shouldn’t be used to calculate a precise geographic discount. But the direction is clear, and I discussed the local findings in more detail in The State of Israeli Pre-Seed in 2025.
A SAFE cap is a conversion term, not a priced valuation. Founders should model the cumulative ownership impact of every instrument they issue, especially when stacking several SAFEs before the first priced round.
My practical advice: make the pre-seed plan specific enough that an investor can see what the money will establish. Which uncertainty will you remove, and what evidence will make the company attractive to a seed investor?
Seed: higher valuations still cost meaningful ownership
Carta’s Q2 2026 benchmarks put the median seed round at $4.5 million on a $23.9 million post-money valuation, with 19.4% median dilution. (Carta, Q2 2026 round benchmarks)
These are separately calculated medians, so dividing round size by valuation won’t reproduce median dilution. The practical implication is still clear: a successful seed round can mean selling around a fifth of the company. Carta’s Founder Ownership Report 2026 finds founding teams hold about 56% of equity after seed and roughly 36% after Series A.
The median also hides a wide spread. In Q1 2026, the 90th percentile seed valuation was nearly 4x the median. Top-decile pricing is not a reasonable anchor for most companies.
In my experience, seed in B2B is less about one fixed ARR number and more about validating paying, recurring customers. I want to understand who pays, what they use, whether they come back, and whether the next customer can be won for reasons beyond the founder’s personal network.
A seed plan should start answering those questions. Product, hiring and sales spend should connect to evidence that the company can eventually support a Series A. A larger round buys more resources, but it also raises the bar for the next financing.
Series A: revenue quality and speed become harder to separate
The median Series A in Q2 2026 raised $14.7 million on a $76.3 million post-money valuation, with 18.7% median dilution. SaaS companies sat higher, at a $93.5 million median post-money. (Carta, Q2 2026 round benchmarks)
As at seed, the headline blends very different markets. Top-decile Series A valuations were nearly 5x the median in Q1 2026, and the AI foundational-model premium described above sits almost entirely in that tail. If you are not in that category, benchmark against companies like yours.
The proof required gets more demanding. Investors want to know whether growth is repeatable, customers stay, economics improve with scale, and the team can execute beyond a few early wins.
From my own experience, for B2B recurring-revenue companies, the Series A conversation increasingly starts around $3.5 million–$5 million in ARR, ideally reached quickly. That is a market observation, not a Carta median or a universal threshold.
Even within software, two companies at $4 million ARR can present very different cases. Strong retention, diversified customers and repeatable acquisition tell an investor something very different from dependence on a single customer, bespoke services or expensive one-off contracts.
For AI companies, I also look closely at gross margins, delivery costs and the durability of demand. Fast adoption is encouraging; the case gets stronger when the company can explain how that adoption becomes a sustainable business.
Two recent reports help calibrate comparables:
- Broad private SaaS: SaaS Capital’s 2026 growth benchmarks, covering more than 1,000 private B2B SaaS companies, report 22% median growth in 2025 (25% for equity-backed companies), and a strong link between net revenue retention and growth. Useful operating context, not a target for a young venture-backed company.
- The outliers: ICONIQ’s September 2026 State of Scaling report finds selected fast-growing, AI-forward companies going from $1 million to $100 million ARR in two to four years, with net retention of 120–146%. They also spend heavily and run lower gross margins than historical software norms.
The lesson for founders and VCs: look at growth, retention and cost of delivery together before choosing a comparable.
Time to close a round and time to reach the next round are different problems
Dropbox DocSend’s 2023–24 research found that successful pre-seed and seed companies closed their rounds in 12 weeks or less, on average. It remains the most detailed public dataset on round duration, but it is a historical success sample, not a promise about every raise in 2026.
For Series A, Carta’s September 2026 guide suggests allowing a few months for the whole process, including 4–8 weeks for legal negotiations and closing after a term sheet. This is planning guidance rather than an observed median.
The bigger operating challenge is reaching the next fundable milestone. In Carta’s most recent published figure, companies raising a Series A in Q2 2025 had waited a median 616 days, a little over 20 months, since their seed round. (Carta, Series A fundraising Q2 2025) That measures the gap between rounds, not 20 months of pitching, and it only counts companies that made it.
Founders often plan a raise around 18–24 months of runway. A 20-month median leaves little room for delayed hiring, slower sales or a longer-than-hoped financing process.
Build a cash plan that includes time to produce convincing results and time to raise against them. Work backwards from the evidence required and model what happens if it takes longer. If an extension becomes necessary, understand its ownership impact, conversion mechanics and any additional rights before treating it as a simple runway top-up.
What this means for VCs
These benchmarks should also make investors look at how they set expectations.
- Match the cheque to the path. If a fund backs a company at seed but expects much stronger revenue and operating proof at Series A, that path should be discussed early. The initial cheque, spending plan and next-round milestones need to fit together. Otherwise a founder can execute the agreed plan and still hit a financing gap.
- Plan reserves for the slow case. With a median gap of around 20 months between seed and Series A, pre-seed and seed investors should size cheques and reserves around the slower scenario, not the base case. Bridges and extensions are part of the portfolio reality, not an exception.
- Watch the Israel-to-U.S. gap. Many Israeli companies raise pre-seed and seed at local pricing, then pitch their Series A to U.S. funds that benchmark against U.S. metrics and U.S. valuations. That transition is where the financing gap above is most likely to appear. Investors in Israeli companies should help founders prepare for the evidence a U.S. Series A lead will expect, well before the raise.
- Be precise about comparables. A SAFE cap, a priced valuation and a bridge are different reference points. A U.S. all-sector median is a starting point, but a weak substitute for understanding the company’s actual market.
- Explain the bar, not just the number. Asking for an ARR figure is easy. Explaining which customer behaviour, growth quality and unit economics would create conviction is far more useful to a founder.
Build the plan around the next proof point
Before starting a raise, I would write down four things:
- The evidence the company can show today.
- The next milestone that should make it meaningfully more fundable.
- The money and time required to reach it, including a slower-case scenario.
- The ownership implications of the proposed financing and a possible extension.
Benchmarks help you decide where to aim. The operating plan needs to explain how you will get there.
Founders: are these benchmarks consistent with what you are seeing? And for VCs, where has the bar moved most: traction, growth quality, valuation or the time needed to build conviction?
Data note: Round benchmarks are Carta Q2 2026 figures, the most recent quarter published as of 1 October 2026; Q3 2026 data has not yet been released. AI vs non-AI valuations and percentile spreads are from Carta’s Q1 2026 reporting. The seed-to-Series A interval is Carta’s most recent published figure (Q2 2025). Carta’s Round Benchmarking Tool covers U.S.-headquartered companies on its platform and excludes bridge rounds and convertible instruments, so pre-seed figures come from Carta’s separate SAFE reports. Carta customers are not a representative sample of all startups, and recent quarters are typically revised upward as transactions are recorded. There is no uniform discount to apply to U.S. figures for Israeli or European companies: sector, traction, investor competition and the market you are raising in all matter. ARR expectations are explicitly identified as personal observations.
He is a former General Partner at Google Ventures (GV) in Europe, former head of Google for Entrepreneurs in Europe, and founding head of Campus London, Google's first startup hub. Eze writes on Israeli tech, venture capital, artificial intelligence, and founder strategy.
He is also the founder of Techbikers, a nonprofit that brings together the startup ecosystem on cycling challenges in support of Room to Read.
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