Who backs a seed round matters as much as how much it raises. Companies funded only through SEIS and EIS angels rarely reach a Series A, while those with a professional investor on the cap table convert many times more often.
Series A conversion by seed investor type
Source: Example data, replace with the report’s source
Adding a non-institutional investor, a family office or an operator fund, lifts conversion to just under a quarter. An institutional VC at seed takes it to a third, eight times the rate of an angel-only round.