What does the Journey Value-Add page measure?

It scores seed-stage VC investors on four observable metrics: number of standardised seed rounds, Seed→Series A conversion rate within 36 months, share of follow-on capital led by top-5% Power Law Series A+ investors, and total follow-on capital raised per company.

How big is the universe?

Around 800 seed investors active in EMEA startups, with standardised seed rounds completed between 2015 and 2021 (cutoff at 2021 gives every cohort at least three years to demonstrate follow-on activity).

Why do the top 5% matter so much?

Startups backed by top-5% seed investors are 4.5× more likely to advance to Series A than those backed by bottom-quartile investors (63% vs 14% conversion). The same cohort also raises ~73× more follow-on capital per company than the bottom quartile.

Founder benchmarks · investor value-add

The startup journey in Europe

Only ~1 in 4 European startups reach Series A within 36 months. The median journey takes ~24 months. And who you raise from is still the single biggest swing factor — top‑5% seed VCs convert 4.5× better than the bottom quartile.

The need-to-know, in four numbers — then let the charts do the talking.

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The journey at a glance

1 in 4

Reach Series A

European startups, within 36 months of their Seed.

4.5×

Top-investor edge

Top 5% seed VCs convert 63% vs 14% for the bottom quartile.

~24 mo

Median Seed → A

Likely 6 months longer once reporting lag is included.

~$10m

Median Series A

The bar founders are clearing — and ~$2.5–3m of pre-A capital to get there.

02 · The journey

Seed to Series A conversion

2016–2018 cohort, 3,075 Seed-funded European companies, tracked at company level.

Cumulative share of the cohort that raised a qualified Series A by month n. 2016–2018 was chosen so the 48-month window is fully observed; add ~6 months of reporting lag at the long end.

By 12 months after the Seed round, 6% of the cohort had raised a Series A. By 24 months it is 18%, by 36 months 27%, and by 48 months 31%.

Put differently: about seven in ten Seed-funded companies never raise a Series A, and most that do get there between month 12 and month 36.

03 · Value-add investors

The investors who add value

The gap, the metrics behind the gap, and the European seed VCs who consistently sit on the right side of it.

01The conversion gap

The leading 5% convert 63% of their seed investments to Series A. The bottom quartile converts 14%.

A 4.5× gap — structural, not random.

Conversion from Seed to Series A within 36 months

Median for each cohort · ~800 EMEA seed investors

Top 5%

63%

Top 25%

58%

25 to 50%

42%

50 to 75%

29%

Bottom 25%

14%

02The cohort dashboard — top 5% outperforms on every metric

Cohort

Qualified seed rounds
per investor

Seed → Series A
conversion

% follow-on from
top Series A+ investor

Avg follow-on VC
per company

Top 5%

63%

91%

$73m

Top 25%

58%

79%

$42m

25 to 50%

42%

$14m

50 to 75%

29%

$5m

Bottom 25%

14%

$1m

Median shown for each cohort across ~800 EMEA seed investors with standardised seed rounds 2015–2021. "Top Series A+ investor" means the round was led or co-led by a Series A+ investor in the top 5% of the Global Power Law ranking.

Cohort

Lead investor share
of all seed rounds

Converted Series A
round size (median)

Time to convert
to Series A

Total follow-on VC
raised

Top 5%

74%

$13m

17 mo

$1.65bn

Top 25%

50%

$12m

18 mo

$563m

25 to 50%

50%

$10m

21 mo

$145m

50 to 75%

50%

$9m

25 mo

$48m

Bottom 25%

25%

$6m

24 mo

$10m

The same top-quality seed investors are more likely to lead the round, convert into larger Series A rounds, convert sooner, and accumulate far more follow-on capital — both per company and across the portfolio.

03European seed VCs who do the work

360 Capital

Paris & Milan · seed → A southern EU

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Accel

London & SF · seed → Series A lead

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Amadeus Capital Partners

Cambridge & London · deep-tech seed

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Atomico

London · seed & Series A pan-EU

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b2venture

St. Gallen · seed DACH + EU

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Balderton Capital

London · European Series A specialist

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Bpifrance

Paris · early-stage volume, French ecosystem

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Cherry Ventures

Berlin · seed lead, DACH + EU

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Creandum

Stockholm · Nordic seed → A

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Earlybird

Berlin · seed → A pan-EU

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Eight Roads Ventures

London · early-stage growth

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Entrée Capital

London & Tel Aviv · seed lead

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Eurazeo

Paris · multi-stage incl. seed

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Heartcore Capital

Copenhagen · consumer seed → A

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Hoxton Ventures

London · seed lead, UK + EU

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Index Ventures

London & SF · seed → growth

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Kima Ventures

Paris · pre-seed volume player

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Lakestar

Zurich & Berlin · seed → growth

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Mangrove Capital

Luxembourg · seed → A pan-EU

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Northzone

Stockholm · early-stage Nordic + EU

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Notion Capital

London · B2B SaaS seed → A

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Octopus Ventures

London · seed → A volume player

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Partech

Paris · seed → growth pan-EU

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Passion Capital

London · pre-seed & seed lead

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Phoenix Court Group

London · LocalGlobe + Latitude

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Picus Capital

Munich · seed-only operator

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Point Nine

Berlin · SaaS & marketplaces seed

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Project A

Berlin · seed operator-led

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Redalpine

Zurich · seed → A DACH lead

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Seedcamp

London · pre-seed & seed lead

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Speedinvest

Vienna & Berlin · pre-seed & seed

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Square Peg

Sydney + Tel Aviv + Singapore · early-stage

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04 · Re-labelling

Why we re-label rounds

Founders label their own rounds, so the same $5m round can be called Pre-Seed, Seed or Series A depending on the story being told. We re-class every round by capital raised — every conversion number on this page sits on that re-labelling.

1

Validate self-labelled Seed & Series rounds
- Seed · self-labelled "Seed", > $1M, within 10 yrs of founding
- Series A · self-labelled "Series A", > $4M
- Series B+ · self-labelled "Series B" or later, > $7M
2

Re-label missing Seed & Series rounds
- Seed · $1–7M, within 7 yrs of founding
- Series A · $4–50M, within 10 yrs of founding
- Series B · $7–300M, within 15 yrs of founding
3

Re-label pre-Series A rounds
- Pre-Seed · > $250K (and < $1M if no Seed follows), within 7 yrs, no standardised Seed before it
- Seed Extension · after & smaller than a standardised Seed, before a standardised Series
- Seed+ · after & larger than a standardised Seed, before a standardised Series (≤ $7M if no Series follows)
4

Re-label post-Series A rounds
- Rounds between A & B → Series A Extension
- Rounds between B & C → Series B Extension
- …pattern continues through F+; anything beyond F is Series F+ Extension

As reported · Self-labelled Founders' own labels — three names cover the same dollar amount

After standardisation · Dealroom-classified Re-classified by capital raised — one label per amount

Bar widths are scaled per column — each column's largest count fills the bar, making the distribution shape inside that label legible regardless of the absolute volume. Counts on the right are the actual round counts. Source: Dealroom rounds database, ~17k qualified European rounds, 2018–25. Self-labelled = noisy; standardised = comparable.

A real company's round history, re-labelled

Each row is a disclosed funding round, shown as reported and after Dealroom standardisation. Toggle a company to see how its labels travel.

05 · Methodology

How the numbers come together

The four metrics Building Financing

Number of seed investments · standardised seed rounds 2015–2021 (Building)
Conversion to Series A · standardised Seed → A within 36 months (Building)
Quality of follow-on capital · share led by top-5% A+ investors (Financing)
Quantity of follow-on capital · total follow-on VC raised per company (Financing)

Universe

~800 seed investors active in EMEA startups
Standardised seed rounds 2015–2021
2021 cutoff to allow ≥ 3 years of follow-on activity
Median shown per cohort, ordered by combined score

Metric 1 · Number

Count of standardised seed rounds an investor participated in (lead or co-lead) between 2015 and 2021. Standardisation harmonises round labels across geographies so a "Pre-Seed" in Berlin is comparable to one in London.

Metric 2 · Conversion

Share of an investor's seed portfolio that raised a standardised Series A within 36 months of the seed round. Conversion is measured at the company level, then median-aggregated per investor cohort.

Metric 3 · Quality

Share of follow-on capital led or co-led by Series A+ investors in the top 5% of the Global Power Law ranking. The Power Law ranking itself is computed independently — see the methodology for how it's built.

Metric 4 · Quantity

Total follow-on VC capital raised per portfolio company since the seed round. Unlike conversion, there is no time cutoff — long-run compounding by the top cohort is part of the picture.

Sources & refresh

Built from the Dealroom company & round database, the Power Law Investor Ranking and the underlying Journey-to-Series-A standardisation. Refreshes annually with new vintages; the cohorts cited on this page use the 2026 dataset.

Track every seed investor your portfolio runs into

Dealroom's platform shows you every co-investor in every round, with their full conversion, follow-on quality and follow-on quantity history — so you can know who you're really in a round with, before you commit.

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