Seed post-money benchmarks

Cap-table mechanics at this stage

PitchBook reports $18.4M Seed pre-money; Carta reports $24M Seed post-money. The gap is partly methodology (Carta is cap-table-only, PitchBook includes broader transaction data) and partly stage-definition variation. The 25th-75th percentile spread is wide. Carta's AI seed premium is about +46% on the pre-money cut (AI ~$19M vs non-AI ~$13M), or ~+42% on the broader 'trades above' cut; the calculator applies the premium to the pre-money median, so uses +46%.

Typical post-money breakdown

For a seed round at the cohort median ($24M post-money, average check 3.5M, 15% option pool refresh): new investor takes roughly 14.6% 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 seed rounds price about +46% above non-AI on Carta's broad AI cohort. AI Seed post-money median: approximately $35M. 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 Q4 2025 (via FutureSight + SaaStr) + PitchBook-NVCA Q1 2026 ($18.4M PitchBook variant) · Verified 2026-08-31.