Series A

Once a business has developed a track record (an established user base, consistent revenue figures, or some other key performance indicator), that company may opt for Series A funding in order to further optimize its user base and product offerings. Opportunities may be taken to scale the product across different markets. In this round, it’s important to have a plan for developing a business model that will generate long-term profit. Often times, seed startups have great ideas that generate a substantial amount of enthusiastic users, but the company doesn't know how it will monetize the business.

Typically, Series A rounds raise approximately $2 million to $15 million, but this number has increased on average due to high tech industry valuations, or unicorns. The average Series A funding as of 2020 is $15.6 million.In Series A funding, investors are not just looking for great ideas. Rather, they are looking for companies with great ideas as well as a strong strategy for turning that idea into a successful, money-making business. For this reason, it's common for firms going through Series A funding rounds to be valued at up to $23 million.

The investors involved in the Series A round come from more traditional venture capital firms. Well-known venture capital firms that participate in Series A funding include Sequoia Capital, Benchmark Capital, Greylock and Accel Partners. By this stage, it's also common for investors to take part in a somewhat more political process. It's common for a few venture capital firms to lead the pack.

In fact, a single investor may serve as an "anchor." Once a company has secured a first investor, it may find that it's easier to attract additional investors as well. Angel investors also invest at this stage, but they tend to have much less influence in this funding round than they did in the seed funding stage. It is increasingly common for companies to use equity crowdfunding in order to generate capital as part of a Series A funding round.

Part of the reason for this is the reality that many companies, even those which have successfully generated seed funding, tend to fail to develop interest among investors as part of a Series A funding effort. Indeed, fewer than half of seed-funded companies will go on to raise Series A funds as well.