Why the AI premium poisons non-AI comp sets.
In 2026, AI-labelled startups raise at materially higher valuations than non-AI peers at the same stage. At seed the premium is around +46% (Carta 2025: AI seed median $19M pre-money vs $13M non-AI) and at Series A around +38%; it then escalates sharply at later stages, reaching roughly +193% by Series E+. For founders building non-AI companies, this matters operationally: if you include AI deals in your comparable benchmark set, you produce inflated valuation anchors that VCs reject in negotiation.
The premium by stage
Seed (+46%) and Series A (+38%) are taken directly from Carta 2025. Pre-seed, Series B and Series C+ are directional estimates following Carta's finding that the premium escalates at later stages (reaching ~193% at Series E+).
What this looks like in dollars
The blended Series A pre-money median is $48M, which already mixes AI and non-AI deals. Splitting it: non-AI median pre-money is roughly $42M and AI roughly $58M ($42M × 1.38). A founder pulling 10 Series A comps from Crunchbase or PitchBook in 2026 will get a mix — say 4 AI deals at $55-$80M and 6 non-AI at $38-$50M. The naive median across all 10 lands near $50M. Using that as your benchmark when you're non-AI overstates your defensible valuation by ~20%. The distortion is far larger if you reach into later-stage comps, where the AI premium balloons.
How to filter AI from comp sets
- Read each comp's positioning. If the company describes itself as “AI-native”, “AI-powered”, “LLM-first”, or includes generative-AI as core product, it's an AI deal even if the underlying SaaS category isn't.
- Check the round announcement language. AI deals consistently lead with model-capability claims, evaluation benchmarks, or training infrastructure. Non-AI deals lead with ARR, growth rate, or customer metrics.
- For ambiguous deals (a SaaS company that added an AI feature), check whether the marketing positioning treats AI as the core product or a feature. Core-AI = AI premium; AI feature = non-AI premium.
- If your comp set ends up with 6 AI and 4 non-AI deals, separate them. Report “AI median: $X. Non-AI median: $Y.” Then state which group you're benchmarking against.
If you ARE AI-native
The ~38% Series A premium is a blended average and is far from uniformly distributed. Foundation-model companies (OpenAI, Anthropic, Mistral peers) command the highest multiples — Series A foundational-AI medians can run several times the non-AI median. Application-layer AI (vertical SaaS with AI features) commands much smaller premiums, often only modestly above non-AI peers. AI infrastructure (training, inference, evaluation) sits in between. Pull comp sets from your specific AI tier, not the aggregate.
Practical recommendation:When VCs ask for your benchmark, lead with the AI/non-AI split. “Our 8 comps split 3 AI ($55M-$90M) and 5 non-AI ($38M-$50M). We're non-AI, benchmarking to the non-AI subset at ~$42M median.” This pre-empts the VC's likely objection about AI deals being in your set.