Stop waiting for your third startup. VC doesn’t reward scar count - it rewards speed, traction, and problems that burn cash to beat the clock.
2025 is not 2023. The market is pickier but alive. Global funding climbed back above $300B in 2024 and Q2/Q3 this year landed near $90-100B each, with AI drinking from the biggest hose. Small US rounds fell to roughly half of deals - the bar rose, not vanished.
I had my AI research agent pull NVCA, Carta, Crunchbase, Stanford - the numbers don’t back the “third-time” fairytale. Most companies start bootstrapped, and most never raise at all. Prior success helps a bit, sure, but there’s no magic unlock at startup three.
What VC is actually for: gasoline on a working fire when time-to-market, network effects, or capex outrun bootstrapping. Not life support.
Early-stage reality check:
- US seed is roughly $2-3M on about $15-16M pre-money.
- Seed-to-A now takes nearly two years.
- Exits reopened in 2024 and kept warming in 2025, but diligence tightened.
AI split the game in two. Freight train - foundation models, chips, data centers - heavy steel, mega-rounds, strategic capital. Scooter - applied or agentic AI on existing models - fast and cheap to build, sometimes to real revenue, but distribution at scale still eats your lunch. US private AI investment topped $100B last year. Inference costs fell, but invoices didn’t - median AI spend crept from around $60k to over $80k a month. Miss your margin math and you bleed.
The catch: internet stats about “only 0.05% raise VC” are mostly bedtime stories. The directional truth is enough - most don’t raise. Focus on signals that travel in this market:
- Customers stick, churn is low, expansion is real.
- CAC payback under a year or a believable path.
- Burn multiple trending down, ARR per head trending up.
Raise too early and you trade optionality for dilution and board-induced burn. Wait too long and a better-funded rival slams the door - or the AI infra you need goes exclusive.
My take - VC backs problems, not attempt counts. If your problem demands speed and capital, raise on day one. If not, earn the right to price your round, then raise to scale the thing that is already working.
What startup number are you on - and what would make you push the big red VC button right now? 🚀