The seed round got smaller and dearer at the same time. PitchBook and NVCA's Q3 2026 Venture Monitor says the median US seed round is $3.0 million, down from $3.4 million last year — the only stage where the median check shrank — while the median seed pre-money valuation rose to $18.3 million, up from $16.0 million.
The door is open wider than ever at the same time: an estimated 8,625 startups raised their first venture round in the first nine months of 2026, already past 2021's full-year record of 8,507. And the money is concentrating — deals of $100 million or more were about 5% of Q3 deal count and 75% of deal value.
Two seeds announced in the last two days show how founders still win a squeezed round. Physicl raised $10 million, led by Inovia Capital — synthetic training data for physical AI, with an early customer, SpAItial, whose reconstruction error was more than halved after training with Physicl data, according to Physicl. Kabilio raised €10 million, led by Picus Capital and Visionaries Club — AI software for accounting firms, whose customers grew from about 100 firms to nearly 500 in a year. Kabilio's customer figures are company-reported, not independently verified.
The lesson: plan the round on the median, not the headline. Size it to the milestone that earns the Series A — the ratio of the separate seed and Series A pre-money medians is now 3.3 times, not a measured step-up for the same companies. And arrive with proof investors can count.
Founders: start with a 21-day free trial of Founder Pro at connectlab.live/founders. Funds: connectlab.live/join/funds.
Sources: PitchBook and NVCA, 'Q3 2026 PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor' (published Oct 2026, data as of Sep 30, 2026); Physicl company blog and TechCrunch (Nov 6, 2026); Tech.eu and Dealroom (Nov 5, 2026). Not legal or investment advice.