LvlUp Ventures read 25,000 applications - what the fundable seed startups had in common

Aaron Golbin (LvlUp Ventures, 1,000+ startups backed) sums up what his team saw across roughly 25,000 applications last year.

- Of the applicants still in business a year later, close to 82% had a strong go-to-market plan already in the deck
- Over 78% of founders use AI somewhere; the ones who struggle bolt tools onto messy workflows instead of designing for them
- Standard marketing tactics in a deck are an auto-reject; they want channels the team has already tested
- Distribution gets designed before the product: Slack and Teams apps, marketplace integrations, embedded fintech

The 82% comes from one firm's funnel, not a controlled study, but it matches a pattern: the deck is now judged on distribution, not on the product.

https://news.crunchbase.com/seed/startup-funding-rules-ai-gtm-golbin-lvlup/

📎 Read also:
→ The GTM Co-Founder - a go-to-market plan for technical founders
→ NBER measured 329 accelerators
→ YC quietly doubled to ~980 startups a year