📉 Series A is emerging as the venture market's new bottleneck Seed rounds are holding firm, especially for AI startups, but fewer funds can write $10–15M Series A checks. Just 23 funds with $200–500M in capital were active in 2022, while 2023 and 2024 combined produced only 24. Older vintages are largely spent — 2021 funds have roughly 14% of capital left and 2022 funds about 24% — as demand climbs: 24.1% of AI startups reach Series A within eight quarters of seed, versus 19.2% of all others.