Axios reported last week that two former 500 Startups partners are raising a $50 million to invest in startups at the pre-seed stage. Then came an announcement that a new pre-seed fund called Afore Capital was launching with a $47 million debut fund. But what is "pre-seed" and why is the term showing up more and more? Short answer: Today's seed rounds are yesterday's Series A rounds, and pre-seed is the old seed. More: Investors tells Axios that pre-seed rounds typically total less than $1 million, sometimes replacing what used to be fundraising from friends, family or individual angels.