Capital concentration, selective seed activity, and defense/hardtech financing

Carta’s Q3 data shows $49.3B across 1,179 rounds even as round counts fell 21% year over year; hardware surged while AI’s seed and Series A share eased. Operand’s $31M across Seed and Series A at a reported $220M valuation remains notable, while Helix’s newly detailed $6.2M pre-seed targets on-device voice identity and age verification. Biotech dollars remain concentrated in $100M-plus rounds, and sparse reporting on Plurai and Mosaic limits their value as market signals.