Pre-money valuation, the founder's lens.
Most calculators ask "what's your post-money?". The founder version asks "how much can I afford to give up?". Benchmarks below are the published 2026 medians, with the AI and non-AI cohorts kept apart, because at Series A they sit nearly 2x apart and the blended figure describes neither. Sister to postmoneyvaluation.com, which takes the cap-table lens on the same rounds.
What you typically give up at each stage
Median pre-money + typical dilution % per stage. AI bifurcation premium per stage flagged separately.
| Stage | Pre-money median | Typical check | Typical dilution | Pool refresh | AI premium |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pre-seed | not published | $0.25-$2.5M | ~18% | 10-15% | +40% est. |
| Seed | $15M | $1-$6M | ~20% | 10-15% | +46% Carta |
| Series A | $64M | $5-$25M | ~18% | 10-12% | +89% |
| Series B | $188.3M | $15-$50M | ~18% | 5-10% | +99% |
| Series C+ | $546M | $30-$200M | ~15% | 3-8% | +63% |
Pre-money medians and the AI premium for Series A, B and C+ are published figures from the PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor Q2 2026, as of 30 June 2026. Marked cells are weaker: Carta = a real figure reached only through named secondary writeups, because carta.com returns 403 to us; est. = nobody publishes a priced AI split at that stage and the number is ours. Series C+ anchors on the Series C figure — Series D+ is reported separately at $2,031.4M pre-money. Re-anchored 2026-09-29.
What each method means for your negotiation
VC Method
Founder reading: this method backs into your pre-money from the VC's required fund return.
Berkus Method
Founder reading: do not accept the $2.5M ceiling you will read everywhere, because the method's author does not assert it.
Scorecard / Bill Payne
Founder reading: this is the method you can argue against.
Risk Factor Summation
Founder reading: read this as the angel's risk-shopping list.
DCF (early-stage adapted)
Founder reading: building a DCF reveals more about your plan than the resulting number.
Comparables (market multiples)
Founder reading: this is the method you use to defend your number to the VC.
The VC, the founder, and the cap-table platform all see this differently
VC calculators anchor on post-money + investor ownership %. Cap-table platform calculators (Carta, Pulley, AngelList Stack) anchor on the cap table. Both make sense — but neither starts from where most founders actually start: "how much equity am I willing to give up in this round?"
premoneyvaluation.com starts there. Set your target dilution, the calculator works backwards to the pre-money you need to negotiate. The companion postmoneyvaluation.com covers the cap-table side with the option pool shuffle math worked through.
Two lenses on the same rounds. Where the figures here differ from the sister site's, this one is the more recently re-sourced. Methodology.