Pre-seed post-money benchmarks

Cap-table mechanics at this stage

Pre-seed valuations have compressed materially from 2021 peaks. The $6M pre-money median is well below 2021's $9M+ figures. The dominant pre-seed instrument is the post-money SAFE, and cap-only (valuation cap, no discount) is the most common form — about two-thirds of pre-seed SAFEs per Carta. AI premium is estimated: Carta does not publish a clean priced pre-seed AI split, though AI pre-seed SAFE caps run materially above non-AI.

Typical post-money breakdown

For a pre-seed round at the cohort median ($9M post-money, average check 1.4M, 15% option pool refresh): new investor takes roughly 15.3% of post-money. Option pool refresh of 10-15% of post-money consumes additional founder + existing-investor allocation. Existing holders absorb the dilution proportionally.

AI-labelled pre-seed rounds price about +40% above non-AI on Carta's broad AI cohort (estimated — Carta does not publish a clean priced AI split at this stage). AI Pre-seed post-money median: approximately $13M. Within AI the gap is larger still — foundational-model companies command multiples of application-layer peers. The cap-table implication: AI rounds have higher absolute valuations but similar dilution percentages, so the absolute dollar value of the new investor's stake is materially higher.

Source

Source: Carta State of Pre-Seed 2025 + VC Beast State of Pre-Seed 2026 · Verified 2026-08-31.