It’s become increasingly common for startups to raise several seed rounds, and this has led to a bifurcation in the seed stage between what are known as “pre-seed” (or “genesis”) and institutional seed rounds.

There are no strict distinctions between these rounds, but below I’ll try to throw out a few parameters to help set the boundaries. For now, it’s fine to think about pre-seed rounds as relatively small ($750K or less), early (pre-product), and typically followed by a larger round within 12 months ($1M – $3M). This is actually an imperfect definition, but let me first talk about why these are happening in the first place. After all, aren’t seed investors (like us) by definition supposed to be the first and earliest-stage investors?