Five things that surprised me about the State of Series A funding in 2024

Peter Walker from Carta just released a ton of data about Series A funding in 2024 and it is fascinating. What I always find interesting about looking at the data that Carta publishes is that it really shows how data really does tell the real story, and media buzz, really is, in many cases, just that — buzz.

The image I posted above is one of three charts that Peter shared in an animated GIF on X. As I go through five things that surprised me about the data, I’ll layer in the rest of the data he shared so you’ll get all the good stuff.

But first, the most shocking (at least to me).

More Non-AI SaaS companies raised a Series A than AI SaaS companies in 2024

If you asked me which sector had the most Series A activity in 2024 I wouldn’t have hesitated to answer — AI SaaS. It felt like every startup that wasn’t an AI SaaS company became one in 2024 so I would have been sure it would take the #1 spot…but it didn’t.

As you can see from the chart above, 130 Non-AI SaaS startups raised a Series A round in 2024 compared to 91 AI SaaS startups.

But, going a level deeper — for AI SaaS startups both the median valuation and median cash raised was notably higher. So while more Non-AI SaaS startups raised a Series A round in 2024, AI SaaS startups still stole the show in many ways with the highest median valuation and the second highest median cash raised out of all 19 sectors.

Renewables edged out AI SaaS to take the #1 spot for median cash raised

From one suprise to another, as I mentioned above, AI SaaS also didn’t take the top spot for median cash raised (although it was close). Renewables ended up in first place with $16.2M as the median cash raised out of 41 total rounds.

For this one I will probably need to dive into the data more to see if a couple monster Series A rounds at the top buoyed this number higher given that they had less than half the number of Series A rounds as AI SaaS. This means that a few heavyweights at the top could tip the scales in their favor here, and it could be that taking one company out would put them in the #2 or #3 spot.

Still, I was surprised to see Renewables perform so well both in median valuation and median cash raised.

Transport and Media saw high valuations taking the #2 and #3 spot

If you told me that Transport startups would see a median valuation almost 2x higher than Biotech I would have told you that you were crazy…but that’s exactly what happened in 2024.

Now this could be my own lack of focus on the transport space, it has never been my jam and I can’t say I pay a lot of attention to what’s happening there. That being said, I had assumed that Biotech companies raised with pretty high valuations given the cost associated with operating in that sector.

Once again though, the data doesn’t lie and it really does show what I know. Biotech and MedDevices were last on the list with $29.9M and $25.M respectively, quite a distance away from the ~$50M median valuation that Transport and Media companies saw.

Proptech was last in two categories

So the real estate market had a tough go in 2024, I get that, but honestly I thought that Proptech would do better…but it didn’t. Proptech was dead last for both number of rounds and median cash raised.

Only 11 Proptech companies raised a Series A round in 2024, that’s less that 10% of the number of Non-AI SaaS companies that raised. And the median amount raised was $4.2M.

Take a sector like Edtech that also didn’t perform well in 2024 and their median amount raised was $10M, more than 2x what Proptech startups saw. Of course with only 11 companies raising a Series A round in the Proptech sector in 2024 it’s also fair to say there isn’t a ton of interest from founders right now for building in the space.

I’ll be curious to see what happens when real estate turns around, will Proptech get hot again?

Cybersecurity is looking 🔥

Last but not least, Cybersecurity outperformed a ton of sectors, coming in stronger than Fintech in both median valuation and median cash raised, and seeing strong median valuations ahead of Non-AI SaaS which definitely surprised me.

In total 30 Cybersecurity companies raised a Series A round in 2024 with a median valuation of $50M which makes them pretty much tied with Marketplace (which is actually an exact tie) and Renewables.

Looking at median cash raised, Cybersecurity locked in the #3 spot just behind AI SaaS which I would also guess has quite a bit of overlap since it’s fair to say that a decent chunk of startups in the Cybersecurity sector are likely AI SaaS companies themselves.

Thank to Peter and the team at Carta to doing such a great job sharing data like this with all of us. This was probably the most interesting data I’ve seen from them all year which is why I felt like I just had to share my thoughts on it — as a the cofounder of a Series A startup it’s data like this that is truly fascinating.

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