Fundraising in 2026
Carta's 2025 report just confirmed something most founders won't want to hear: bridge rounds rarely help startups reach Series A.
There's a lot of useful data inside, but three points stood out to me the most:
1. Unicorns increasingly start with higher seed valuations
Startups with higher seed valuations have a ~5.6% chance of reaching a $1B valuation, compared to just 0.8% for companies that started with lower seed valuations.
For context: the median pre-money seed valuation is now $16M, up from $7.5M in Q1 2019.
This creates a paradox: higher seed valuations correlate with unicorn potential, but they also mean higher expectations and potentially harder Series A raises if you don't hit hyper-growth metrics quickly.
2. The time between funding rounds keeps getting longer
Back in 2017, startups moved from Seed to Series A in about 1.4 years. In 2025, more than 75% take around 3.5 years to get there. The same trend appears between Series A and B — typically 2–2.6 years now. This completely contradicts what we see in AI headlines, where rounds happen in 3–6 months. The data tells a different story than the hype.
3. Bridge rounds rarely help startups reach Series A
According to Carta, startups that raise a bridge round after Seed are less likely to reach Series A than those that don't.
If you're considering a bridge round, ask yourself: what fundamentally changes between now and the next round? If the answer is just "more runway," that's usually not enough. Bridge rounds are often a signal of trouble, not a solution.
