Hacker News Reader

Comment by abalone | Hacker News Reader

Except: "Bear in mind that the total dollar amount of money flowing into seed deals barely declined".

That is a questionable definition of "popping" a bubble.

The article does go on to admit that it's just selectively illustrating the number of deals, not the amount invested in seed deals, which is actually still the same in aggregate, and then wishy-washily says it's up to you to interpret this yourself etc. But since most people don't read too far past the dramatic chart and the headline, I think it would be fair to say this smacks of click-baity sensationalism.

View on HN

And it's equally possible to interpret this data positively. Perhaps VCs are becoming more selective and concentrating their money on better teams/ideas instead of casting as wide of a net as possible(I am not saying this is actually the case). I don't understand why so many journalists try to find catastrophe in the absence of contrary evidence.

That's negative for shitty teams/ideas, but yeah, probably positive for the health of the ecosystem.

I would apply the "San Francisco Rent Test". Are SF rents still high? Then Seed Bubble: not popped.

Rags need to produce articles. Exhibit 1.

That should actually be a red flag about the data. When you see a rapid, precipitous decline in deals but amounts don't change, you have to look at the data.

How do you get a rapid, precipitous decline in deals without an expected decrease in dollars? Use a data source that a) is liable to miss deals[1] and b) will classify multi-million dollar rounds involving institutional/venture investors as "seed"[2][3].

[1] Per my other comment I work with a startup that raised a public seed round in Q4 that is not listed in Crunchbase.

[2] https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/skydio

[3] https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/north-technologies

Could an article based on the same data not also be titled "Seed rounds increasingly replaced by Series A"? Because while Seed rounds are in decline, Series A is up.

Series A also are higher amounts than Seed, so volume in investments is actually going up.

Also, it doesn't matter if something is called Series A or Seed. In the end it is about the amount of dollars available to entrepreneurs.

First of all. The word click-bait needs to die. It implies wrongdoing by the author, but all you are really saying is the headline grabbed your attention and you didn't like the content.

Second, the aggregate chart shows the total amount invested went from 9 years of growth to it's first decline. Look at Q3 2014 vs Q3 2013 more than a 50% decline in seed deals! With numbers like that it's hard not to interpret it as foreshadowing continued declined.

Nope. It shows the total number of deals, not amount invested. You fell victim to precisely the problem I mentioned.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com