After digging through the data, I lay out my expectations for the rest of the year.

Peter Walker dubbed 2023 “The Year of the Bridge Round.” In many cases, the founders did what they set out to do, it’s just that the bar for Series A moved.

Startups getting from Seed to Series A in two years has dropped by a third. It’s creating a “messy middle in the earliest parts of the market,” according to Peter Walker.

Fundraising is not an equal market and that feels shitty for most founders.

There are rays of hope for the market, but the most important thing is to stay focused on what you can control.

The backlog in the private markets extends from IPOs to PE, all the way down to Series A. It’s one of the primary drivers of so many startups stuck at Seed.

The market conditions driving Seed have been building for the past few years. More Seed funds kept Seed isolated from the later stage problems… until now.