Pre-seed Is Over in Emerging Markets
In 2025, you don’t raise on vision — you raise on velocity. Execution is the new traction.
Let’s be real.
The whole notion of “pre-seed” — where a founder walks in with a deck and an idea — is done.
Dead. Gone.
That stage no longer exists for 99% of founders.
The Slide Deck Era Is Over
Back in 2020, I was building a language recognition model. It sounded technical. Investors liked it. I raised a small check.
If I pitched that today?
“I’m building a language recognition model.”
I wouldn’t just get a no. I’d get laughed out of the room.
Because that’s no longer innovative — you can now spin up Whisper, Deepgram, or any other LLM-based tool in a few hours.
That’s the new baseline.
AI Collapsed the Zero-to-One Cycle
We now live in an era where an MVP can be built in hours, not quarters.
Loveable. Vercel. Replit. LangChain. Vercel AI SDKs. GPT-4 Agents. It’s all there.
So if you tell a VC in 2025:
“I have a great SaaS idea, but I haven’t built it yet.”
You're not pitching a pre-seed.
You’re pitching pre-effort.
Because in today’s market, the only acceptable way to prove intent is to show execution.
Execution Is the New Validation
Investors don’t want to fund what you plan to do.
They want to fund what you’ve already started doing.
The new standard:
Working demos > slide decks
Weekend MVPs > vision statements
GitHub commits > market sizing slides
If you can’t code, learn or partner.
If you won’t build, you’re not a founder — you’re a narrator.
Who Still Raises at Pre-Seed?
Let’s be honest. Some people still raise on a deck alone.
If OpenAI’s CTO spins out, they’ll get $10M soft-circled off a Notion doc.
If you’re a DeepMind researcher or Bay Area operator with two exits, capital follows before product.
But that’s not most founders in Emerging Market.
If you’re in MENAP, Singapore, SEA, Asia— or anywhere else — and all you’ve got is a pitch deck for a SaaS you haven’t built?
You’re not getting funded. Not in 2025.
The Data Agrees
Let’s look at the numbers:
In Q1 2025, Carta reported fewer than 1,700 pre-seed rounds over $1M, down from nearly 3,000 a year earlier.
91% of pre-seed deals are SAFEs — convertibles are disappearing.
Median pre-seed valuation: $5.3M–$5.7M.
Check sizes are consolidating: fewer deals, larger rounds when conviction exists.
44% of priced rounds are under $250K, up from 30% in Q4 2023.
What does this tell us?
The market is trimming fat.
Pre-seed is behaving more like seed.
And that means execution is the default filter.
The Internal VC Reality
Most active VCs today take 100+ founder calls a month.
They see AI demos, product mockups, working Chrome extensions — all built in a weekend.
So when someone shows up with a clean deck and no product?
That’s not stealth.
That’s not early.
That’s unprepared.
And it sends a signal — not the one you want.
What Founders Need to Know
You don’t need perfect UI. You don’t need 10k users.
But you do need something real.
Show that you can build.
Show that you’re moving.
Show that you’ve de-risked the first layer yourself.
Because in this market:
Founders who ship → signal → raise.
Founders who narrate → stall → disappear.
The Takeaway
Pre-seed may still exist on the cap table.
But in real life, it’s not a stage. It’s a filter.
Unless you’re a top-tier founder with pedigree and past exits,
you no longer raise on intent.
You raise on output. On speed. On traction. On something real.
The era of idea-stage founders getting funded is over.
2025 belongs to those who build first — and pitch after.