Pre-seed
On a post-money SAFE the cap does the work a pre-money valuation does later, and the arithmetic is direct: the holder owns the amount raised divided by the cap, so raising a tenth of the cap gives away 10%. Stacking is the thing to watch. Each post-money SAFE fixes its holder's percentage, so every additional note dilutes you and not the earlier holders, and founders routinely discover the total only when the priced round converts everything at once. Nobody publishes a priced AI split at pre-seed, so this page does not show one.
Why there is no median here
Pre-seed is not priced the way the later stages are, so a pre-money median is the wrong instrument for it, and the Venture Monitor does not break pre-seed out. Almost all of these rounds are post-money SAFEs, and what governs your dilution is the valuation cap. Carta's State of Pre-Seed 2025 (published 19 February 2026) puts the median cap on post-money SAFEs at around $10M for rounds of $250K to $1M, and around $15M for rounds of $1M to $2.5M.
The option pool
An option pool created or topped up inside the pre-money comes out of the existing holders, not the incoming investor, so every point of pool you agree to is a point of your own dilution that funds nothing operational. Put the pool size you are being asked for into the calculator on the home page and watch the required pre-money move.
Source
↗ https://carta.com/data/state-of-pre-seed-2025/Source: Carta, State of Pre-Seed: 2025 in review (published 19 February 2026) · Verified 2026-10-17.