For Fundraising, Seed is No Longer a Round, It’s a Phase

Want to know the biggest challenge Satya and I faced when announcing Homebrew’s third fund? How to describe the phase of company we seek to invest. “Early stage” has been coopted by billion-dollar VCs who try to shoehorn a $10m ARR SaaS company into their idea of risk capital. And the verbal gymnastics of some founders! “We did a pre-seed, followed by a seed, then a bridge and an A. Now we’re raising an A-2 to scale. But it’s definitely not a B — that’ll come in 18 months.” What?!? Makes me wish we’d just adopt version numbers, a la software releases — Round…