AI Round-Size Benchmark
What AI startups actually raise, stage by stage.
A handful of giant rounds set the headline number. The round a typical company actually closes is far smaller. Pick a stage and watch the gap.
A typical Series B round
$50M
median, 2026 through Oct. Half land between $30M and $100M.
$123M
the headline number, 2.5x the typical round
Rounds over $100M
27 of 100 Series B rounds cleared $100M.
The giants pulling the Series B average up: xAI $6B · Figure AI $675M · Mistral AI $645M.
Take the $100M+ rounds out and the average drops from $123M to $40M, right next to the $50M median.
Where the rounds land
2026 runs through Oct, so read it as a partial year.
Seed barely moved. The later rounds reset.
The typical Seed round looks much like it did in 2023. Series A, B and beyond stepped up by half or more. Raising an A in 2026 is a different market than 2023. Raising Seed is not.
* 2026 partial year
Every stage, every year
The median round, by stage and year, in US dollars. Look up any cell. The teal outline is the latest read; the gold outline is each stage’s highest year on record.
./medians_by_stage --unit=USD
| Stage | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026* |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pre-Seed | $2M | $2.2M | $2M | $2M |
| Seed | $5M | $5M | $5.5M | $5.5M |
| Series A | $14M | $15M | $17M | $20M |
| Series B | $30M | $31M | $40M | $50M |
| Series C | $50M | $56M | $70M | $100M |
| Series D | $70M | $100M | $110M | $140M |
| Series E+ | · | · | · | $300M |
| Growth | $32M | $30M | $100M | $124M |
The Bay Area premium lives in the giant rounds.
Same stage, different zip code. The typical Bay Area round tracks the rest of the US closely. The gap opens at the top, where the giants cluster, 2026 through Oct.
See the Bay Area premium at every stage
Where Bay Area founders raise more, and where the gap is just the giants. The one sign-in reward.
Sign in for the Bay Area premium
Free. No credit card. You'll also get the weekly AI Funding Memo with deal coverage.
Already have an account? The same buttons sign you in.
Median round size by funding stage, in US dollars. Big rounds means $100M and up. The distribution band shows the middle 50% of rounds, the median, and the headline average for the stage. The named rounds are public, widely reported deals. Bay Area covers the wider San Francisco Bay Area. 2026 runs through October, so read it as a partial year. Stages with fewer than 50 rounds in a year aren’t shown.