The cultural norms in the venture capital industry change. What I mean is that deal terms – valuation, control rights and beyond – change over time. A sweetheart deal last year is an outrage this year.

A few years back a typical Series A round was characterized by a $1-5 million investment. As capital requirements for tech startups took a noise dive, entrepreneurs began to seek smaller rounds of capital – they could prove milestones and potentially reduce their total dilution by raising less money initially. Entrepreneurs demanded and investors listened – seed investments came into vogue like jean shorts in the early 80s.

While Seed rounds started out as $100-500K slugs, as they became popular and investors dog-piled in seed rounds have increased in their bite size to $750-2 million. As a result, Seed rounds have inched up to look more and more like the Series A of old leaving many entrepreneurs with an increasingly hard time finding investors who would give them their very first $100-500K.

To help entrepreneurs, today High Peaks is announcing its Seedlet Program.  After just a meeting or two, we’ll write small checks ($50K to $150K of a round up to $500K). You can read more about the program here.

Want to learn more? My partner Brad Svrluga also wrote a post on the topic here.