Carta: Pre-Seed to Series A Funding is Down -9% in 2024

So it’s interesting how folks craft headlines from data.

Carta released its latest funding data the other data for 2024 Year-To-Date here:

What you can see is that yes, large, hot AI later stage deals overall are indeed driving venture capital deployments up an impressive +17% the year.

But that’s for late-stage capital.  Most of it AI driven.  That’s the story those headlines tell.

For early stage VC, it’s actually down -9% in 2024 over 2023.

Per Carta, pre-seed is down -5%, seed -7%, and Series A -11%.

This tracks to what I’m seeing too.  The hottest deals literally have no problem getting funding in 2024, and the hottest AI deals somehow can raise and absorb unprecedented amounts of capital.  Elon Musk’s x.AI raising another $6B at a $50B valuation a year after launch is breathtaking.  And deals like this absorb a lot of VC capital.

But your regular old, classic early-stage VC fundraising was about 9% harder this year than last year.

Not a ton harder, but a smidge.

Net net, if you’re hot, it’s as easy to fundraise as ever.  But don’t let those headlines confuse you. Early-stage fundraising overall hasn’t bounced back to its earlier 2020-2021 highs.  Nor is there any real reason it should.

Having said all that, we’ll see what 2025 data shows.  I predict a 10%-20% uptick in early stage SaaS and B2B funding, a bounce back.

Why?  Many top SaaS leaders’ stock prices have been on a tear at the end of the year.  This should drive more early stage VC investing in 2025.