VC activity goes upside down as seed deals fall and mega-rounds rise

Hello and welcome back to our regular morning look at private companies, public markets and the gray space in between.

Earlier today, PwC and CB Insights dropped a sheaf of data concerning the global and domestic Q1 venture capital market, something we'll be yanking data points from here and there for a few days. What matters is that our continuing hunt to understand what's going on with VC and its investment habits (some of our recent work here and here) can take another step forward today.

We're talking about three trends this morning: The sharp decline in Q1 U.S. seed rounds, how mega-rounds ($100 million and larger funding events) are holding up the sky for domestic venture totals, and what March might tell us about what's going on with COVID-19 and VC activity today.

Ready? This is going to be quick and easy and fun.

So much for Seed

According to the report, domestic Seed rounds, in slow decline since peaks in 2017, have sharply fallen since Q3 2019.