Startup funding stages: from bootstrapping to Series C and exit

Read startup news for a week and you’ll pick up a strange vocabulary. Pre-seed. Seed. Series A. A bridge round. Sounds like insider code, doesn’t it? It’s really just a ladder. Each rung has its own investors and its own price, and you pay in shares of your company.

Here are the startup funding stages, in the order they tend to show up. For each one you’ll see what the round is for, how much money moves in Italy and in the US (2025 and 2026 data), and where your own idea sits today. It’s the second stop on our beginner’s map from zero to a first round.

What are the startup funding stages?

Here’s a simple way to see it: every round buys you a milestone. You raise enough to prove the next thing, then go back to investors, show them the proof and ask for more, usually at a higher price. What you have to prove changes as you climb. First that the problem is real, then that people use your product, and finally that growth repeats month after month.

Every round also costs you a slice of the company. Investors pay cash and get shares, so your percentage shrinks. That’s dilution, and it’s normal. Sixty per cent of a company worth €20 million is worth far more than all of one that never got going.

1. Bootstrapping. Your savings, your evenings, your first customers’ money.
2. Friends and family. Small cheques from people who trust you, before there’s much to show them.
3. Pre-seed. The first professional money. Often a business angel or an accelerator writes the cheque, and it carries you from prototype to first users.
4. Seed. A product people use has to become a business with paying customers.
5. Series A. Venture capital funds back growth that has started to repeat.
6. Series B, C and later. The big cheques, spent on scale: new markets, a larger team, now and then an acquisition.
7. Exit. A buyer shows up, or the company lists on a stock exchange. That’s the first time investors see their money again, either multiplied or gone.

Not sure what a startup is, strictly speaking? Read what a startup actually is first and come back when you’re done.

How much do startups raise at each stage?

Let’s begin with Italy, where the numbers turn out smaller than the headlines. Growth Capital and Italian Tech Alliance counted 145 rounds worth €813 million between January and June 2026. Almost six deals in ten were pre-seed or seed (€37 million at pre-seed and €135 million at seed, €172 million in all), and the bigger rounds soaked up the rest: Series A and later made up just 21% of the deals but 68% of the money.

The ladder narrows fast. Across all of 2025 the same observatory recorded 436 rounds. Only 53 were Series A, and 14 were Series B.

For per-round figures, the deepest public dataset is Carta’s, built on the cap tables of companies that use its software. The medians below cover software startups only, and Carta itself reminds readers that a median is just the middle of a wide spread. It isn’t a target.

Stage	Typical amount	Who invests	What they want to see	Typical dilution
Bootstrapping	Your savings and first revenue	You and your co-founders	A problem worth solving	None
Friends and family	What people close to you can afford to lose (no reliable data)	Relatives, friends, former colleagues	Trust in you	Depends on the deal: keep it small and in writing
Pre-seed	Average instrument $276,000 (US, Q2 2026)	Business angels, accelerators, pre-seed funds	Team, problem, prototype, first users	Set by the SAFE cap: $1M on a $10M post-money cap is 10%
Seed	Median $4.1M	Seed funds, business angels	A product in use, first revenue	18% (median)
Series A	Median $14.4M	Venture capital funds	Growth that repeats	18% (median)
Series B	Median $25M	Larger VC and growth funds	Growth that scales	12% (median)
Series C and later	Nearly $40M at C, $63M at D	Growth funds, corporates, international funds	Market leadership, a path to profit	Under 10% at C, 8% at D
Exit	Sale (M&A) or stock market listing (IPO)	Buyers or public markets	A buyer, or a market, ready to pay	Investors get paid

Two patterns stand out. Dilution hovers near a fifth of the company through seed and Series A, then falls. Meanwhile the dollar amounts climb much faster than the percentages, because each round is priced on more proof than the one before.

Bootstrapping, friends and family, pre-seed: the first money

Most companies start on the founders’ own money. Building with savings, spare evenings and the first customers’ payments keeps 100% of the company in your hands, and it forces you to find out early whether anyone will pay. Our guide to starting a startup with no money shows how far that can take you.

Friends and family often come next. The amounts are whatever people close to you can afford to lose, and nobody publishes reliable statistics on them. Do it properly anyway. Write the terms down, say clearly that they could lose all of it, and don’t accept any money that would hurt the giver if it vanished. We cover the Italian mechanics in how to raise your first €50,000.

Pre-seed is the first professional money. It usually comes from business angels, accelerators and small funds, and it’s modest: in the second quarter of 2026 the average pre-seed instrument signed by US startups on Carta was $276,000. At this point investors are betting on people and a problem, with maybe a prototype and a few users. The figure you ask for should come from the milestone, so start by working out how much money you actually need to reach it.

Seed and Series A: from first customers to repeatable growth

Seed is where a product that works has to become a business. Investors want people using it, ideally paying, and a team that learns quickly from them. In Italy, seed rounds raised €135 million in total in the first half of 2026. On Carta, the median seed round among software startups was $4.1 million, for 18% of the company.

That 18% moves with the price. It pays to understand pre-money and post-money valuation before an offer arrives, because the same cheque can mean a different slice depending on which one you’re quoted.

By Series A it’s usually venture capital funds that lead the round. The question shifts from ‘does anyone want this?’ to ‘does growth repeat?’. Carta’s median: $14.4 million raised, again about 18% sold. Getting there takes patience. At the end of 2025 the median time between seed and Series A was 1.9 years, close to the traditional benchmark of 18 to 24 months, so plan for your seed money to last at least that long.

For the percentages founders usually give away, round by round, see how much equity to give away at pre-seed and seed.

Series B, Series C and the exit

From Series B the money pays for scale: new countries, bigger teams, sometimes acquisitions. Carta’s medians were $25 million at Series B, for 12% of the company, and nearly $40 million at Series C, for less than 10%. In Italy these rounds rarely close on domestic money alone. In 2025 every round above €20 million had at least one foreign investor.

For investors, the exit is the point of the whole ladder. The company is bought, or it lists on a stock exchange, and shareholders can finally sell. Italian exits have mostly been acquisitions: 31 M&A deals in 2025, the most notable being AXA’s acquisition of Prima, and not a single listing.

Which instruments are used at each stage?

Rounds differ in the paper you sign as well as in size. These are the four instruments you’ll meet most often in the early years.

• Equity. The investor buys shares (quotas, in an Italian SRL) at an agreed price. Series A rounds and many seed rounds work this way, and it’s the moment your valuation becomes official.
• Grants and public loans, money that doesn’t cost you shares. In Italy the best known is Smart&Start Italia: a zero-interest loan covering 80% of a business plan worth €100,000 to €1.5 million, or 90% for teams made up entirely of women or of young people up to 35. If investors put capital in, part of the loan can turn into a grant. Our page on grants for founders under 35 covers the alternatives.
• SAFE (simple agreement for future equity). The investor pays now and receives shares at the next priced round, usually with a valuation cap. Y Combinator created it in 2013, and its templates are written for companies in the US, Canada, the Cayman Islands and Singapore, not for an Italian SRL.
• Convertible note. Same idea, but legally a loan, with interest and a maturity date until it converts. Its share of US pre-seed deals keeps shrinking.

The two convertible instruments are compared clause by clause in SAFE vs convertible note.

Where does your startup sit today? A quick checklist

• No product and no users yet: you’re bootstrapping. Spend time, not money, proving the problem exists.
• A prototype and a few people who keep using it puts you in friends and family or pre-seed territory. Decide what the next 12 to 18 months must prove before you ask anyone for money.
• Paying customers, and monthly numbers you’d show a stranger? You’re getting close to seed.
• Growth that has repeated for several months means it’s time to study Series A investors and what they’ve funded.
• At any stage, write one sentence on what the money will prove. That sentence is your round.

Next stop on the map is the startup glossary, with the 50 words investors will use in your first meetings. Ready for the real thing? Our guide to raising capital in Italy takes you through the process one step at a time.