Embarking on the entrepreneurial journey? Understanding Series A, B, C funding is crucial. Let's demystify these stages, their significance, and how they fuel a startup's growth trajectory. A must-read for aspiring entrepreneurs and startup enthusiasts.
A startup with a brilliant business idea
From humble beginnings, the company proves the worthiness of its model and products, steadily growing thanks to the generosity of friends, family and the founders’ own financial resources.
- Over time, its customer base begins to grow, and the business begins to expand its operations and aims. Before long, it has risen through the ranks of its competitors to become highly valued.
Series C Funding
Investors inject capital into the meat of successful businesses, in an effort to receive more than double that amount back
- Focused on scaling the company, growing as quickly and as successfully as possible
- One possible way to scale a company could be to acquire another company
- Series C funding could be used to buy another company.
Explaining Series A Financing
The path for each startup is somewhat different
- Many businesses spend months or even years in search of funding, while others (particularly those with ideas seen as truly revolutionary or those attached to individuals with a proven track record of success) may bypass some of the rounds of funding and move through the process of building capital more quickly.
Series A Funding
Once a business has developed a track record (an established user base, consistent revenue figures, or some other key performance indicator), that company may opt for Series A funding in order to further optimize its user base and product offerings.
- Typically, Series A rounds raise approximately $2 million to $15 million, but this number has increased on average due to high tech industry valuations.
How Funding Works
There are three types of participants in a round of funding: individuals hoping to gain funding for their company, potential investors, and analysts assessing the company.
- The key distinctions between funding rounds have to do with the valuation of the business and its maturity and growth prospects.
Series B Funding
About taking businesses to the next level, past the development stage. Investors help startups get there by expanding market reach.
- Series B is often led by many of the same characters as the earlier round, including a key anchor investor and new wave of VC firms that specialize in later-stage investing.
The Bottom Line
Understanding the distinction between these rounds of raising capital will help you decipher startup news and evaluate entrepreneurial prospects.
- Series funding enables investors to support entrepreneurs with the proper funds to carry out their dreams, perhaps cashing out together down the line in an IPO.
Pre-Seed Funding
This is the period in which a company’s founders are first getting their operations off the ground.
- The most common “pre-seed” funders are the founders themselves, as well as close friends, supporters and family.
- Depending upon the nature of the company and initial costs set up with developing the business idea, this funding stage can happen very quickly or may take a long time.
Seed Funding
The first official equity funding stage
- It typically represents the first official money that a business venture or enterprise raises
- Helps a company finance its first steps including market research and product development
- Seed funding rounds vary significantly in terms of the amount of capital they generate
- Median seed round investment was $1 million in 2020
