Having started companies in both 2000 and 2012, I just don't think this is true. It was easy to put something in front of users in 2000 for less than $1000. We started with a $20/month shared host, PHP and MySql, and easily scaled to hundreds of thousands of users just by renting some dedicated machines. Google, Yahoo, ViaWeb, Facebook, and Ebay all started the same way. Yes, there were crazy $2M funded startups that bought Sun hardware and Oracle software, but this was absolutely not required.

Many parts of startups today are harder. Users' expectations for design and functionality is much higher. The internet was also much smaller in 2000, which made startups like Google possible.

The explosion in seed deals seems much more driven by the funding landscape, the rise of mobile and the social web, and cultural recognition of startups like Facebook.