👋 Hey, Egemen here.
PitchBook and NVCA published the Q3 2026 Venture Monitor last week. US startups raised $515.8B through September, and AI took 82.7% of it. Seed is the only stage where the median deal shrank this year, from $3.4M to $3.0M. I also look at Arena, which raised $200M at a $3.1B valuation after it passed $100M in annualized revenue.
Here’s a snapshot of what’s on the menu today:
💡 Spotlight: Voice Planner
🧠 Deep-Dive: Seed is the only round that shrank
🗺️ Method: How Blu Dot passed 2,000% ROAS with self-serve TV ads on Roku
⚾️ Catch: Sprinto, compliance automation for SOC 2 and ISO 27001
☝️ Scaled This Past Week: Arena
💡 Spotlight: Voice Planner
With Voice Planner, you can use Alexa to add tasks with dates, times, categories, and priorities, hear what you need to do, and manage your tasks hands-free.
Voice Planner is listed on the Notion Marketplace and is also live on Product Hunt.
🧠 Deep-Dive: Seed is the only round that shrank
I expected a record year to mean bigger checks at every stage. The Q3 2026 PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor shows bigger checks at every stage except one. PitchBook and NVCA released it on 7 October, with data through 30 September.
US startups raised $515.8B in the first nine months of 2026. That is about 44% above the full-year record from 2021. AI companies took 82.7% of the money.
Seed went the other way. The median seed deal fell from $3.4M in 2025 to $3.0M this year. The median Series A deal grew from $13.7M to $17.4M.
-12%
Change in the median US seed deal size from 2025 to 2026 ($3.4M to $3.0M).
Seed is the only stage where the median deal shrank. Every later stage grew.
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(Source: PitchBook and NVCA, “Q3 2026 PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor”, 7 October 2026)
US venture data through 30 September 2026. Percent changes compare 2026 medians with 2025 medians and are rounded.
More companies are getting a first check. PitchBook counts 8,625 first-time financings through Q3. That already beats the full-year 2021 record of 8,507.
Investors put most of the money into the largest rounds. Rounds of $100M or more were about 5% of Q3 deals. They took 75% of Q3 deal value.
Late-stage shareholders take a cut when they sell. On Forge, shares in companies that last raised in 2023 trade at a median 45% discount. Airtable sold for $1.3B after an $11.7B valuation.
My read for founders at seed: investors write more first checks, and each check is smaller. The large rounds wait for proof at Series A and later. You have to buy that proof with less seed cash.
👉 Build your seed plan on $3.0M, the new median. Pick the one metric a Series A lead will pay for, and give it 18 months of runway. Set a monthly target for that metric and review it with your board. Turn down a higher valuation if it raises the bar for your next round past what 18 months can reach.
🗺️ Method
Blu Dot surpasses 2,000% ROAS with self-serve CTV ads
Blu Dot used Roku Ads Manager to drive incredible results for its furniture sales event. Its strategy hinged on custom audiences and retargeting, where intent was strongest.
“Roku has been a top performer,” said Blu Dot’s Claire Folkestad. “We have seen…CPMs lower than any other CTV partner we've worked with.”
⚾️ Catch
Your next enterprise deal dies in security review without a SOC 2 report. Sprinto gets you audit-ready in 14 days: three sessions, AI agents collect the evidence, you approve.
☝️ Scaled This Past Week: Arena
UC Berkeley spinout / AI model evaluation / announced 8 October 2026
Arena has raised a $200M Series B at a $3.1B valuation. Lightspeed Venture Partners and Khosla Ventures co-led the round. Salesforce Ventures and Dell Technologies Capital joined as new investors.
Arena started in 2023 as Chatbot Arena, a UC Berkeley research project. People compare two AI answers side by side and vote for the better one. Wei-Lin Chiang, Anastasios Angelopoulos and Ion Stoica founded it. It became a company in April 2025.
The leaderboard stays free and draws tens of millions of visitors each month. Arena makes money from AI Evaluations, a paid product it launched in September 2025. TechCrunch reports annualized revenue of $30M at the January Series A and $100M by June.
The valuation rose from about $1.7B in January to $3.1B now. Arena also rates AI agents now. Its Agent Arena logged 7 million sessions in less than five months.
What to copy
Arena gives the leaderboard away. Tens of millions of visitors use the free rankings, and AI companies pay Arena for private evaluations. Find the free tool your buyers check every week. Then sell them the private version of it.