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Welcome to another Data Driven VC “Insights” episode where we cover the most interesting research and reports about startups, VCs, LPs, AI & automation.
Seed Valuations Reach New Highs
Peter Walker at Carta tracked a decade of Q2 seed valuation benchmarks and found the top of the market accelerating faster than ever.
95th Percentile Hits $200.4M: Top US seed valuations reached $200.4M in Q2 2026, up from $72.2M in Q2 2025, across 3,671 seed rounds tracked on Carta since 2018.
177.6% Growth in 12 Months: Top-decile seed valuations outpaced even the 92.2% jump seen during the 2020-2021 funding frenzy.
Broad-Based Acceleration: The 90th, 75th, and 50th percentiles also hit their fastest rate of change on record, even as fewer companies get funded at these high prices.
✈️ KEY TAKEAWAYS
Top-decile seed pricing has compounded at a pace last seen in 2021, spread across a shrinking pool of companies. LPs should expect the outlier bar for seed-stage returns to rise alongside these entry prices.
The Individual Versus the Firm
Dan Gray at The Odin Times argues venture firms suffer diseconomies of scale much like operating companies, and that raising bigger funds works against the mechanics of good investing.
Fund Size, U-Shaped Valuation: A cited 2010 study finds fund size and firm valuation move in a convex, U-shaped pattern, while fund size and successful exit odds move in a concave, inverted-U pattern.
Little "Organisational Capital" in VC: A cited 2013 study found most of a firm's value sits in its partners' combined human capital, with fundraising the main reason GPs join larger platforms.
Smallest Funds, Outlier DPI: Small-fund outperformance is tied to power law returns, since consensus-driven committees catch mistakes but miss non-obvious winners.
✈️ KEY TAKEAWAYS
Bigger funds solve the fundraising problem while straining the investing one. GPs sizing funds around AUM growth rather than return discipline may be trading performance for platform scale.
Less Junior Investors, More Engineers
Our new Data Driven VC Landscape Report 2026 shows firms shifting headcount from junior investment roles to engineering as AI reshapes analyst work.
49% Plan to Add Engineers: Half of DDVCs plan at least one engineering hire in the next 12 months, none plan cuts, and 51% expect flat eng headcount.
45% Plan to Cut Junior Investor Roles: Compared to just 2% planning to add a junior investor, with 53% holding steady.
First Time Engineering Outpaces Investing Headcount: This is the first cycle where engineering teams are expected to grow faster than junior investment teams, as firms automate analyst and associate work.
✈️ KEY TAKEAWAYS
The junior investor track is shrinking as the engineering track expands, a structural shift rather than a budget adjustment. LPs should ask GPs how they'll develop future partners without the traditional associate pipeline.
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New Fundraising Benchmarks
Peter Walker at Carta published fresh benchmarks across 1,133 US software rounds raised in the last six months, from seed through Series D.
Seed Medians: $24.3M Valuation on $4.1M Raised: Median seed dilution sits at 18%, a figure that has been ticking down for months.
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