Last week, we spoke to Chris Smith of Playfair on the state of pre-seed in 2024. It was a well received interview, but his view can only be that of one early-stage VC.

Views of how things look for early-stage startups (and early-stage VC) vary depending on who you speak to. And I’m willing to bet that they vary a lot depending where in the country you are and which kinds of startups and investors you talk to.

What's YOUR take on the future of pre-seed? In order to get a better sense of how things stand, we're devoting today's edition to getting a broader view. Read on!

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Let’s figure out the state of UK pre-seed, together

Pre-seed is a notoriously difficult startup stage to understand in detail.

Unlike later stages, you can't easily quantify levels of deal activity, as so much flies under the radar and happens privately.

Rounds go unannounced because founders want to make sure they’re onto something good before they make a noise about it, or they’re just too busy in those early days to think about publicity.

Thus startups die before anyone knows who they are, or that anyone backed them in the first place. That’s usually before they have any funding data in the big data platforms like Crunchbase and Dealroom.

Meanwhile, how investors treat startups (and vice versa to an extent) in tougher economic times is often whispered about in hushed tones but rarely gets a public airing.

As a newsletter focused entirely on pre-seed startups, and read almost exclusively by people who invest in, build, or work with them, PreSeed Now is in a unique position to figure out exactly what’s happening in the earliest stages of building a startup in 2024.

…so, let’s do just that!

What we want to find out

• How sentiment has shifted in the pre-seed world in the past year

• How deal activity has evolved in the past year

• How deals are structured now vs last year

• How optimistic early-stage founders are about their businesses

• What sectors are hottest

• …and a lot more

How it will work

Our research will take two forms:

1. We’ll be talking to VCs, angels, accelerators, venture builders, and founders. We’ll publish some of those conversations in editions of this newsletter over the coming weeks (between our regular profiles of early-stage startups).

2. Today we’re launching a survey to capture opinions from across the early-stage pre-seed landscape. It only takes two minutes to complete (or you can take longer if you want to share more information).

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What will come out of this?

We’ll carry out the research for the next few weeks and publish our findings later in the year.

Paid subscribers to PreSeed Now will get these findings first.

Upgrade to a paid subscription to see the findings first AND you’ll get access to the full versions of all of our 100+ in-depth startup profiles going back over two years AND our Startup Tracker database.

To celebrate the launch of our PreSeed 2024 research, we’ve launched a special 25% off promotion for new paid subscriptions between now and 30 November.

That means you’ll get the full PreSeed Now experience for £7.50 per month or £75 per year for the next 12 months. It’s a great deal for everything you get, and you’ll be supporting everything we do at PreSeed Now.

How you can help

1. Fill in the survey (it takes two minutes!)

2. Spread the word: share this post on social media, and send it to people who you think should take part

3. If you’re a VC; angel; founder, or you work at a venture builder or accelerator, and you want an in-depth chat about the current state of pre-seed, get in touch. We want to hear the good and the bad, and we are very happy to keep your name confidential if you prefer.

This is the first time PreSeed Now has done anything like this, and I’m excited to see how it turns out… so let’s do it!

– Martin SFP Bryant