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    Funding Stages & Instruments
    Entry
    Global · Global

    Pre-Seed

    Also called: Pre-seed round, Pre seed

    TL;DR

    The earliest priced or convertible round, typically raised on an idea, prototype, or very early traction with $250K to $2M from angels and pre-seed funds.

    A pre-seed round is the first institutional check a startup raises, usually before product-market fit and often before revenue. Round sizes range from $250K to $2M; valuations (or caps) sit between $4M and $12M post-money. Most pre-seed rounds are SAFEs or convertible notes rather than priced equity.

    Pre-seed investors price the team, the market, and the founders' ability to compress learning faster than the cash burns. Specialist pre-seed funds, angels, and accelerators dominate this stage; multi-stage funds occasionally write small pre-seed checks as options on later rounds.

    Worked example

    Two ex-Stripe engineers raise a $1.8M pre-seed at a $9M post-money cap on a SAFE from a pre-seed-focused fund + 4 angels. Use of funds: 18 months of runway, 4 hires, and an MVP that demonstrates a working integration with one design partner.

    Common pitfalls

    • •Raising too much pre-seed and pricing yourself out of seed.
    • •Stacking many small SAFEs at different caps and creating cap-table chaos.
    • •Treating pre-seed money as runway to PMF when it's usually only enough to find an MVP that works.

    When this shows up in a pitch deck

    A pre-seed deck focuses on team, problem, customer discovery insights, and a credible 12-month milestone plan rather than financial projections.

    See Pre-Seed in context

    Pre-Seed shows up most often in these scoring rubrics and investor profiles, jump straight to who cares about it and how to pitch them.

    In VC frameworks

    Techstars

    Pitch deck framework

    Antler

    Pitch deck framework

    Related terms

    Seed

    The round raised to find product-market fit, typically $1M to $5M on $8M to $25M post-money valuations from seed and multi-stage funds.

    SAFE

    Y Combinator's Simple Agreement for Future Equity, a contract that gives an investor the right to equity in a future priced round, with no debt or interest.

    Convertible Note

    Short-term debt that converts into equity at a future priced round, typically with a discount, a valuation cap, and an interest rate.

    Valuation Cap

    The maximum company valuation at which a SAFE or convertible note will convert into equity, protecting early investors from dilution at high prices.

    Runway

    The number of months the current cash balance will last at the current net burn rate before the company runs out of money.

    Pitch deck pillar pages

    Long-form deep dives on the slides Pre-Seed most often shows up on.

    Fundraising Readiness Checklist

    Are you ready to raise? A 12-question fundraising readiness checklist: deck quality, traction milestones, valuation defensibility, investor list, data room.

    Use Pre-Seed in your next pitch deck

    Deckmetric scores your pitch across 10 VC frameworks and against 8 investor types.