However, many people outside of the startup scene have misconceptions, as they see survivor bias/success bias in the reporting. One item in the report feeds this misconception: "The average company got $1.9 million in funding." The median raised would be far more revealing of the actual experience that a startup faces than the average.
I just pulled some numbers quickly...
In the last 3 Techstars NYC batches (not including the most recent), there were 37 companies with median funding of just over $1.6 million. 28 are still active, 6 have been acquired and 3 have failed.
Total companies: 486
Median funding: $450,000
Average funding: $2,039,918
Total funding: $991,400,000
var fundings = $('.batch .parent .right').map(function(){
return +this.innerHTML.replace(/(\$|,| )/g, '') || 0;
}).toArray();
fundings = fundings.sort(function(a, b) { return a - b; });
var totalFunding = fundings.reduce(function(a, b) { return a + b; });
console.log('Total companies: ', fundings.length);
console.log('Median funding: ', fundings[Math.round(fundings.length / 2)]);
console.log('Average funding: ', Math.round(totalFunding / fundings.length));