Pitchbook: the median pre-investment valuation for a Series A round in the US has increased sixfold to $37M since 2010
@lpolovets https://thein.fo/... by @KateClarkTweets
Context & Ripple Effects
PitchBook's sixfold jump in median pre-investment Series A pricing is the valuation-side twin of a deal-size story already on record: an analysis of 2,539 US rounds found the median Series A check had reached $8.6M by early 2020. Bigger checks and richer pre-moneys are moving together, so each round buys investors meaningfully less of the company than it did a decade ago.
The timing matters: this lands just before PitchBook counted $69B raised by US startups in Q1 2021, a 41% jump over the prior record. Entry-stage pricing is being repriced inside the frothiest fundraising environment on file, which is what makes the $37M figure a leading indicator rather than a lagging one.
First-order effects
- Founders clearing the Series A bar now sell roughly a sixth of the equity for the same stake they would have given up in 2010, while lead investors must write far larger checks to hold their target ownership percentage.
Second-order effects
- Richer pre-moneys make new outside leads more expensive for incumbents to accommodate, consistent with PitchBook's finding that inside rounds topped 1,000 in 2020 with $30B invested — existing backers defending their stakes rather than letting fresh money price the round.
Third-order effects
- If entry pricing keeps compounding, Series A becomes a scale gate that fewer startups clear, pushing capital toward proven teams and mega-rounds — a concentration pattern PitchBook itself later confirmed when $32B of Q4 2024 funding landed in just five deals.
The trend: US venture capital is inflating entry-stage valuations faster than it widens access, concentrating dollars in fewer, larger, later-priced rounds.