Explainer
Funding Rounds
Seed, Series A, B, C and beyond
The stages in which a private company raises money from investors as it grows.
Companies rarely raise all their money at once. They raise in rounds, each one typically at a higher valuation if the business is working.
Seed rounds fund the earliest ideas. Series A, B and C rounds follow as the company proves its product, scales sales and expands. Later rounds, sometimes called growth or late-stage rounds, can be very large and may come before an IPO.
Each round sells new shares, so earlier shareholders own a smaller slice of a hopefully bigger company.
Illustrative explainers. Figures in examples are hypothetical.