Larger rounds, fewer deals. This was one of the defining paradoxes of the US early-stage venture market in 2025. The median funding round continued to grow even as fewer deals closed.
According to PitchBook–NVCA Venture Monitor, the number of US pre-seed/seed deals fell 13.7%, from 5,475 in 2024 to 4,724 in 2025. At the same time, the median round size rose 20.8%, from $2.4 million to $2.9 million. The typical round was therefore $500,000 larger, while the deal count fell by 751.
The divergence is even more pronounced over five years. Compared with 2021, the number of early-stage rounds fell 36%, while the median round size increased 45%. Across the broader venture market, funding volumes rose, driven in large part by major investments in artificial intelligence.
We analyzed trends in early-stage funding rounds and compared our findings with independent industry research. The central question is what larger seed rounds tell us, and whether they signal better funding conditions for startups.
The study draws primarily on PitchBook–NVCA Venture Monitor data published in the NVCA 2026 Yearbook. The main comparison covers the combined US pre-seed/seed category over two full calendar years, 2024 and 2025. Deal counts come from the report’s activity statistics by funding series; median round sizes come from its round-size statistics.
We also examined quarterly trends, data for 2021–2025, mean and median sizes for seed rounds considered separately, and AI/ML statistics covering the entire US venture market. To compare deal count with median round size, we calculated indices by dividing each year’s value by the corresponding 2021 figure and multiplying by 100.
Research from WilmerHale, CB Insights, the OECD, Crunchbase and TrueBridge Capital Partners provides broader context.
US pre-seed/seed deal count declined every year from 2021, although the pace varied. After a sharp fall in 2023, activity nearly stabilized in 2024, before the decline returned to double digits in 2025.
Over four years, the number of early-stage deals fell by 2,658. Yet the median pre-seed/seed round increased from $2 million to $2.9 million over the same period. The past three years are particularly revealing. In 2023, the median remained at $2.2 million despite the steep drop in deal count. It then rose to $2.4 million in 2024 and $2.9 million in 2025. The most pronounced increase in typical round size thus came after the sharpest contraction in investment activity.
To compare the two trends, we at Raiseward Ventures indexed both measures to their 2021 levels.
By 2025, the deal-count index had fallen to 64, while the median-round-size index had reached 145, a gap of 81 index points. This is the study’s clearest finding: over five years, deal activity contracted while the size of a typical completed round also changed.
However, the median alone cannot show whether round sizes increased across all groups of startups or whether larger deals made up a greater share of the total. Answering that question requires a separate analysis of how funding is distributed by stage, sector and round size.
Quarterly data confirms that the downturn was not confined to one weak period. US pre-seed/seed deal count was lower than a year earlier in every quarter of 2025.
The steepest decline came in Q2. The year-over-year gap narrowed in Q3, then widened again toward year-end. Deal count therefore declined consistently throughout the year, although the pace varied.
The median measures the size of a typical completed round but does not reveal the distribution of funding. To assess the possible influence of large deals, we compared the median with the arithmetic mean, which is more sensitive to exceptionally high values.
For the seed stage alone, the median round size rose from $3.1 million in 2024 to $3.8 million in 2025. The mean increased from $4.8 million to $6.6 million.
The mean grew faster than the median, and the gap between them widened by $1.1 million. This is consistent with the hypothesis that large rounds had a greater influence on the figures, but it does not prove it. Measuring concentration requires data on the distribution of deals, rather than just two aggregate statistics.
Law firm WilmerHale’s 2026 Venture Capital Report provides further evidence of rising early-stage round sizes. It reports that median financing in the US angel/seed category increased from $2 million in 2024 to $2.3 million in 2025, or approximately 16%.
The absolute figures differ from PitchBook–NVCA because the sources use different samples and classifications. The comparison therefore confirms the direction of change, rather than validating an identical metric.
WilmerHale also notes the effect of SAFE financing on early-stage statistics. These financings may be less likely to appear in venture-round databases, while a company’s first priced round may take place at a more mature stage. This is one possible factor behind observed funding sizes, but the available data cannot quantify its contribution to the rise in the median.
The prevalence of large seed investments is another sign of the early-stage market’s diversity. According to Crunchbase, by December 2025, investors had funded around 700 seed rounds of at least $10 million worldwide. One of the most unusual examples was Thinking Machines Lab, which raised $2 billion in a round labeled as seed.
Such deals remain exceptions, but they show how different companies within the same funding stage can be. For some, seed capital funds product validation and the search for initial customers. For others, it supports a substantial research program, infrastructure and a team before the business generates consistent revenue. This complicates the interpretation of market-wide round sizes. An increase may reflect changes in the mix of companies closing rounds as well as changes in funding conditions.
Rising investment in artificial intelligence provides important context for the structure of the venture market. However, AI data covering all stages cannot directly explain the rise in median seed round size.
According to PitchBook–NVCA, US AI/ML deal value increased from $108.6 billion in 2024 to $222.1 billion in 2025. The sector’s share of total venture deal value rose from 50.9% to 65.4%, while its share of deal count increased from 34.6% to 39.4%.
In 2025, AI/ML accounted for less than two-fifths of US venture deals but almost two-thirds of their total value. The difference between these shares shows that average deal value in the sector was substantially higher than elsewhere.
Global studies also report high levels of capital concentration. CB Insights estimates that AI companies raised $226 billion, or 48% of global venture funding, in 2025. The OECD puts AI’s share at 61% and reports that megadeals exceeding $100 million accounted for about 73% of investment value in the sector.
The difference between the CB Insights and OECD estimates reflects their different data sources and methodologies. The figures are not interchangeable, but both studies show AI’s exceptional role in the allocation of venture capital.
TrueBridge Capital Partners provides further context. Its State of the Venture Capital Industry study reports that US venture investment rose 59.8% in 2025, while deal count fell 4%. Around half of total funding went to a small group of the largest rounds, including those raised by OpenAI, Anthropic and xAI.
The broader market thus showed a similar divergence to early-stage funding: dollar volumes increased faster than deal activity. The causes, however, may differ. In particular, capital concentrated in late-stage AI rounds does not automatically explain the rise in the seed-stage median.
The divergence between deal count and median round size points to a change in the structure of early-stage venture funding, but it does not directly measure access to capital. That requires additional indicators, including the number of startups seeking investment, the share that successfully closed rounds and the time taken to raise funds.
A higher median round size does not mean that comparable funding has become available to most startups. When planning a raise, more relevant benchmarks are companies at a similar stage and in the same sector. The target amount should reflect the company’s funding needs and the milestones it aims to reach before its next stage of development.
Larger early-stage rounds place additional demands on portfolio strategy. With a finite pool of capital, bigger initial investments require trade-offs between the number of investments, ownership stakes and reserves for follow-on rounds. This makes disciplined capital allocation and the management of portfolio concentration especially important.
Raiseward Ventures’ research identifies a persistent divergence between investment activity and round sizes. From 2021 to 2025, US pre-seed/seed deal count fell 36%, while the median round size rose 45%. This points to a structural market shift: larger completed rounds are no longer accompanied by growth in the number of investment deals.
The faster increase in mean seed round size relative to the median is consistent with large rounds exerting a greater influence. Alongside the concentration of venture capital in AI and the largest deals, this suggests that funding may be becoming more unevenly distributed. However, the available data cannot establish how much these factors contributed to early-stage trends specifically.
Early-stage funding is shifting toward fewer, larger deals.
A higher median round size does not, by itself, mean that capital is easier to access. Assessing access requires looking at companies that attempted to raise funding as well as rounds that closed.
