# Rising Valuations but Fewer Startup Rounds in 2026

**Author:** Peter Walker  
**Read time:** 1 minute  
**Published date:** July 9, 2026

Median early-stage valuations are at record highs, yet the number of rounds being completed is actually falling—concentrating dollars into fewer companies.

> “Everyone is raising huge venture rounds at wild valuations, it’s all easy now.”

Eh…not quite.

- Median valuations in early-stage venture are rising quickly
- For seed and Series A, they've never been higher
- In prior booms, the number of rounds rose alongside the valuations
- But in this one, there are actually fewer rounds being completed

Higher valuations (and more $) into fewer companies = concentrated bets as an asset class.

Personally I'd like to see more odd, weird, off-the-radar founders getting a shot.

**Author:** [Peter Walker](/content/author/peter-walker/index.html)  
Peter Walker runs the Insights team at Carta, focused on discovering key data and narratives across the private capital ecosystem. In a former life, he was a marketing executive for a media analytics startup and led the data visualization team at the Covid Tracking Project.