Recommended: Listen to this story (06:11 - 11:22):

The Story: As anticipated, the venture capital comeback is not yet here. VC in the United States has continued to struggle in Q3, but there are significant silver linings.

PitchBook just released its VC valuations data for Q3, and the report is clear: Growth-stage and pre-IPO companies remain in trouble. But, early- to late-stage startups are actually trending in the right direction. Here are some of the specifics of the Pitchbook report:

Despite a market correction, pre-seed and seed rounds are performing well and look to have weathered the storm. Pre-seed and seed have even seen a record high median seed deal size of $3.3 million in Q3. According to PitchBook, “While we do not expect to see significant deal-metric growth in the near term, we do not expect to see a deal-metric correction soon either.”

The same can’t be said for growth-stage startups, however. They have seen median deal metrics crash by more than 60%. PitchBook credits this decline to a “prolonged lack of liquidity and pullback of nontraditional investors.”

But the growth-stage landscape has left matured startups without opportunities to raise additional capital. For many growth-stage startups, their only move is to either get acquired by a larger company or try their hand at an unwelcoming IPO market.

In Q3, only 27 startups made public exits totaling $21.9 billion. Although up from Q2, that doesn’t come close to Q3 of 2021, which had 95 public exits with $167.3 billion in exit value. And, Q3 public exits were mostly carried by Instacart and Klaviyo, two startups with large IPOs that have underwhelmed.

The signal to unprofitable pre-IPO companies is somewhat clear—the public exit option is not very tempting.

The Expert Take: Mark Tomasovic, principal at Energize Capital, outlines the way to be a successful startup in today’s tumultuous markets:

*Stay informed about the three biggest stories in venture capital and tech news every weekday morning. 2-min reads only.