The Series A Crunch Returns in 2024: Supply-Demand Imbalance in Venture Funding

The venture capital market is experiencing a Series A funding crunch in 2024, similar to 2012, driven by an oversupply of seed investments relative to Series A opportunities. The ratio of seed rounds to Series A rounds has grown from 1.1:1 to 5:1 over 14 years, creating a funding squeeze for traditional SaaS companies, though AI startups remain an exception. Based on historical patterns, this excess will cascade to make Series B the hardest round to raise within 18 months.