The valued startup types in today’s early-stage venture market

If you want to score the largest possible early-stage valuation, what should your startup focus on? New data makes it clear that the seed and Series A markets are hardly equal when it comes to what venture capitalists are willing to pay for one category of startup over another.

Don’t worry, the answer here is not just “build an AI startup,” even if that does appear to be pretty solid advice for avoiding a down round.

Data shared by Carta when we interviewed the company’s CEO on the Equity podcast earlier this week provides a simple and clear stratification of early-stage valuations and fundraising sizing. Let’s start with seed data:

Image Credits: Carta