Venture capital news headlines are currently dominated by large-scale stories: concentration of capital in the highest growth corporations, rising valuations, seed rounds totaling tens or even a whole bunch of tens of millions of dollars, and mega funds raising tens of billions in latest capital.
Smaller funds and more modest seed rounds do not seem to be useful.
Seed trends are bifurcating
Crunchbase’s US seed funding data supports this view.
Deal volumes and amounts are declining roughly 20% year-over-year across pre-seed and regular financing ranges ranging from $200,000 to less than $5 million in deals. (As at all times, this ratio will improve barely over time as smaller rounds of seeds are added to Crunchbase.)
The mid-tier team, ranging from $5 million to less than $10 million, has remained consistent 12 months over 12 months.
Crunchbase data shows that among U.S. seed financing deals, only the upper bands of larger and more outlier seed rounds – those valued at $10 million and above – grew in 2025.
According to the company, it is a divided market Katie Stantonfounding father of the seed fund Moxxie Ventures. “Either you’re an elite AI team that’s growing really fast and you’re going to raise a ton of Series A capital from one of the big companies, or you’re all different people,” she said.
In response to market changes, her fund modified its strategy, saving a larger portion – 60-70% on core capital – compared to 50% in previous funds. We would favor to have more shots on goal, she said.
The second change was finding founders even earlier, often without even waiting for product-market fit.
It’s the seed transaction that counts
Most seed-stage deals still occur in rounds of $5 million and smaller. However, this percentage has decreased over time, from 93% in 2018 to 75% of transactions in 2025.
Meanwhile, the share of larger and unusual seed rounds of $10 million or more increased from 2% to 9% during this time. This signifies that roughly 1 in 10 seed deals valued at more than $200,000 in 2025 were deals valued at $10 million or more, and there have been roughly 360 of them.
Number of seeds
Seed funding in the U.S. totaled $19.4 billion in 2025, according to Crunchbase.
Large deals drove growth, with 51% being seed deals of $10 million or more compared to a third in 2024. The largest seed round in 2025 was $2 billion Mira Murati‘S Thinking Machines Laboratory.
From 2018 to 2025, seed rounds of $200,000 to $5 million dropped from 70% of all seed funding to 26%.
At the same time, the variety of seed rounds price USD 5 million and more increased from 2021 and remained at a high level compared to 2020 and earlier.
In 2025, the biggest jump in amounts was in outlier seed rounds – deals valued at $50 million or more – which increased by more than 300%. Even those larger seed rounds ranging from $10 million to $50 million gained 20%.
Changed seed shape
Crunchbase data shows that seed funding has by no means stalled.
Instead, AI is transforming seed investing, with multi-stage enterprise capital and midstream funds backing hot corporations earlier and at higher values due to founder pedigree or company traction.
As a result, the variety of larger seed rounds increased in 2025, with over 20 outlier deals valued at over $50 million and over 300 valued between $10 million and $50 million.
Seed fund managers change strategies based on the changing funding market.
“Building a product has never been this easy and building a business has never been this difficult,” Stanton said.
A small seed round can lead to the creation of the next breakthrough company. “There is still a need for smaller firms and smaller VCs to emerge to serve different audiences,” she said.