AI-focused companies are facing longer fundraising timelines, which has founders and investors adjusting their strategies, Fenwick’s Al Cooper and Kat Duncan recently explained to Venture Capital Journal.
“[W]hen we see these timelines lengthening, we do know that founders and investors are taking note and acting accordingly by either preserving more capital or using it differently, thinking of strategies around their fundraising,” Cooper told the outlet in an article about the Venture Beacon Q2 2025, which is produced by Fenwick and Aumni, a J.P. Morgan company.
Now, startups are raising bigger seed rounds to bridge the gap. And “[a]necdotally, we’ve seen investors demanding either better metrics or other indicia of a Series A round after a seed,” Duncan told VCJ.
The article explores multiple insights from the Venture Beacon Q2 2025, including a decline in down and flat rounds, stronger secondaries than recent years, and the rise of less-dilutive Simple Agreements for Future Equity (SAFE) notes.
Read the full article at Venture Capital Journal.