Seed rounds are bigger: At Heap, we raised $2M on a $12M cap after having a working product and some early traction. Today, it's not uncommon to see a pre-produ

Seed rounds are bigger: At Heap, we raised $2M on a $12M cap after having a working product and some early traction. Today, it's not uncommon to see a pre-product company raise $5M on $25M or even higher I'm seeing this as well and it's eye-watering how inflated the valuations have become for pre-product companies with no clear distribution levers. The consequence of this easy money has been a lot of flash-in-the-pan startups that seem more stable than in eras past (they've got lots of employees, a nice office, and some good press coverage, they must be legit!), but actually can flame out pretty quickly after a couple of years of serving actual customers. As a result, there are more buyers who are just more wary of new SaaS companies to begin with - they have the legitimate concern of whether you'll be around in a few years to continue supporting their needs, or just disappear with a nice "It was a great journey" blog post. While capital has become commoditised, the market is still yearning for more good tools, and SaaS is still a good delivery method with acceptable pricing. Founders should certainly think very carefully about why they are raising before they do so, and maybe even skip it altogether.