Average burn rates of early-stage startups rose very rapidly over the years before February 2019.

Judge as of 2019-02-16. True: data on early-stage (seed/Series A) startups show average monthly burn rates rose steeply, roughly in a 'hockey stick' or multiple-fold pattern, over the few years before 2019. Mostly true: burn rates rose substantially (e.g., clearly faster than inflation, by tens of percent or more) but less dramatically than the image suggests. Mixed: some datasets show sharp rises and others show flat trends. Mostly false: burn rates rose only slightly, so 'very rapidly' is a clear overstatement. False: burn rates were flat or fell over that period.

Set before the research began.

1. E1 How startups spend their money: New data shows how burn rates differ by industry and region GeekWire · 6 December 2018

   “The average monthly burn rate for pre-seed startup came in at just under $18,000; at $75,000 for seed round companies; at just under $400,000 for Series A; $500,000 for Series B; and $900,000 for “graduated” startups.”

2. E2 Finding the Right Burn Rate for Pre-Seed Companies - The Relationship Between Burn Rate and Graduation Rate for Our First 150 Pre-Seed Investments Precursor Ventures (chudson.substack.com) · 17 May 2023

   “Today’s burn rates are much higher than when we started investing in pre-seed companies in 2015. I believe some of the increase is due to the dramatic increase in investor capital that came into the early-stage ecosystem during the low interest rate environment period that ended in 2022.”

3. E3 What Does It Take To Raise Your Next Round In 2018? Crunchbase News (guest post by Kyle Poyar, OpenView) · 12 September 2018

   “At this stage, companies increase their sales and marketing spend to between 50-75 percent of their ARR and see burn rates rise to $300k-500k per month.”

4. E4 The Minutes of Bill Gurley on burn rate The Minutes of Bill Gurley (minutesof.com)

   “Burn rates are higher than they've ever been.”

E1 and E3 give average or typical monthly burn levels for single points in time in 2018. They do not show how burn rates changed over the years before 2019. E2 says burn rates in 2023 were much higher than in 2015, but it covers a period that runs well past February 2019 and does not break out the trend before 2019. E4 is undated and gives no figures, so none of the evidence shows how fast early-stage burn rates rose before the claim date.