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It\u2019s no secret that the bar for startups to land a Series A has risen, but has it risen too high? According to Jenny Fielding, a co-founder and Managing Partner at Everywhere Ventures, startups are facing what she calls \u201cThe Series A Chasm.\u201d In a post on X this month, Fielding said, \u201cthere\u2019s a huge backlog of seed stage companies with nice traction \u2013 just not $3m ARR + 30% MOM growth kinda traction.\u201d The post sparked a conversation online, and Fielding joined Haje Kamps on Equity to talk through it all. \n\nLooking beyond Fielding\u2019s portfolio, we can see that the early stage storm has been brewing for quite some time. According to data from Crunchbase, seed companies have raised about $7 billion so far this year, which is down $1 billion year over year and down significantly in the later stages. Crunchbase has even taken to calling this a moment of \u201cextended adolescence\u201d for startups, with an increase in companies raising $5 million+ seed rounds instead of a Series A. \n\nOf course, this meant we had to address the AI elephant in the room, and the $135 million seed round Musk\u2019s xAI raised last December. Note that after 6 months, the company behind Grok has already announced a $6 billion Series B round. It was an interesting chat, so press play and join the conversation!