Today's A round is bigger than yesterday's B round.

The market is finally recognizing that early-stage startups are much more sophisticated than previously thought.

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"Just as notable as the eyebrow-raising sums of money being deployed is the cast of characters spending that capital. Growth equity — traditionally those firms that invest in mature private companies — are now competing with VCs by investing more money into startups and at earlier stages of funding.

All of those factors, investors we spoke with say, are making early-stage investing a much more competitive and faster game for all involved."

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"Founders increasingly seek speed when raising funding, he said. 'If I were a founder, I can certainly empathize with that situation because you’re motivated to find the right investors as quickly as possible so that you can build your business. You don’t want to spend your whole life fundraising.'"

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"'I’ve always thought a good product would be a hedge fund or mutual fund on Silicon Valley,' said [Thomvest Ventures Managing Director Don] Butler, commenting on the speed and volume of Tiger Global Management‘s investments in later-stage companies, but also in some earlier stages as well.

'And if you have a mutual fund of the most interesting companies in venture there’s inevitably going to be one or more of those power law companies in there that are going to distribute quite a bit.' The best returns in the industry can be massive, he acknowledged, by 50x or greater."

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