Analysis: Series A and Series B rounds have annually accounted for between 21% and 37% of total $100M+ VC rounds across the globe since 2010
It's become the norm for some private tech companies to raise in a single round what VC firms raise for an entire new fund.
Context & Ripple Effects
This analysis quantifies how far stage boundaries have blurred: since 2010, between 21% and 37% of global $100M+ VC rounds each year were Series A or B deals — rounds nominally for early-stage companies that now rival the size of an entire new VC fund. It sits alongside research counting 455 giant $100M+ rounds in 2019 alone, worth ~$108B or 47% of dollar volume, which shows how much of the market's money moves through these outsized checks.
The pattern connects two other data points in the coverage: US median Series A deal size reached $8.6M between 2018 and early 2020, and analysts had already framed the largest growth rounds as effectively private IPOs absorbing most of the industry's increased funding. Early-stage rounds joining the $100M+ club is the same phenomenon working its way down the stack.
First-order effects
- Founders raising Series A or B can now take in fund-scale capital in one step, letting them skip or compress the intermediate rounds the traditional venture ladder assumed.
Second-order effects
- Seed investors respond by writing larger checks to keep their portfolio companies competitive for these mega-A/B rounds — consistent with the finding that $3M+ seed rounds grew from 7.8% of totals in 2015-17 to 17% in 2018-20.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, stage labels lose their meaning as sizing signals: capital concentrates into fewer, larger checks earlier in company life, and the late-stage dynamics once reserved for pre-IPO companies — including the rise of over 1,000 insider-only 'inside rounds' in 2020 — migrate down into Series A and B.
The trend: Venture financing is inflating round sizes at every stage simultaneously, eroding the traditional distinction between early-stage and growth-stage capital.