What is pre-seed funding?
Pre-seed is the earliest formal funding stage of a startup — capital raised before a traditional seed round, typically to validate the idea, build the founding team, and develop an MVP. Pre-seed rounds typically range US$50K to US$500K in the U.S. and US$25K to US$300K in Türkiye.
Pre-seed funding usually comes from founders’ personal savings, family-and-friends rounds, angel investors, pre-seed funds and accelerator programmes. Instruments include SAFEs, convertible notes and small priced equity rounds. Pre-seed cap-table cleanliness is essential for future institutional rounds.