Fundraising
Pre-Seed
The earliest stage of startup funding — typically $250K-$2M raised before having a product or significant traction, often from angels and pre-seed funds.
Pre-seed is the earliest formal funding stage for startups — before seed and long before Series A. Pre-seed rounds typically range from $100K to $2M and are used to: validate core assumptions, build an MVP (minimum viable product), hire the first 1-2 engineers, and establish initial customer conversations. Pre-seed investors include angels, friends and family, micro-VCs and pre-seed funds (Precursor Ventures, Hustle Fund, Indicator Ventures), and accelerators (YC's initial $500K investment is pre-seed). At pre-seed, investors are betting almost entirely on the founders — there's minimal product and zero business metrics. Pre-seed is typically done via SAFE with a relatively low valuation cap ($3-10M).