Startup glossary

API-first is a product and engineering approach in which APIs are treated as primary, reusable product interfaces from the start rather than added after an application is already built.

Also called startup accelerator

An accelerator is a structured, short-term program designed to speed up a startup's progress toward product-market fit, traction, fundraising, or scale.

Also called acqui-hire

An acquihire is an acquisition or acquisition-like transaction in which the buyer's primary goal is to hire the target company's team rather than to acquire the target's operating business, revenue, customers, or standalone product.

Also called angel

An angel investor is an individual who invests their own money in an early-stage startup, usually in exchange for equity, a SAFE, or convertible debt.

Also called deal attribution

Attribution answers "who gets recognized for this deal, based on what contribution and evidence?"

Blitzscaling is a startup scaling strategy that deliberately prioritizes speed over efficiency in the face of uncertainty in order to win a large, valuable, winner-take-most market.

Also called bridge financing

A bridge round is temporary financing that extends runway until a specific next event.

Build in public means openly sharing the process of creating, launching, and growing a product or company while the work is still happening.

Burn multiple is a capital-efficiency metric that measures how much net cash a startup burns to generate each dollar of net new annual recurring revenue.

Also called capitalization table

A cap table records who owns a company, what securities they hold, and how ownership changes after financing, grants, conversions, or exits.

Also called carried interest

Carry is a performance-based share of profits, not a salary and not a management fee.

Also called co-invest

Co-investment is an investment made alongside another investor, usually a fund, lead investor, financial sponsor, or syndicate lead, into the same company or transaction.

Also called convertible debt

A convertible note is a short-term debt instrument that can convert into equity in a later financing, often with interest, maturity, a valuation cap, and/or a discount.

Also called investor conviction

In startup investing, conviction means an investor has enough justified belief in a company, founder, market, or thesis to commit capital, reputation, time, and follow-on support despite uncertainty.

Deal flow is the rate, quality, and pipeline movement of potential deals available for evaluation.

Also called startup referral

A deal referral is a startup investment opportunity passed from one person or organization to an investor, venture firm, angel, scout program, accelerator, or corporate development team.

Default alive means a startup is on a trajectory to reach profitability before it runs out of cash, assuming its current expenses stay roughly constant and its recent revenue growth continues.

Default dead means a startup will run out of cash before it reaches profitability if it keeps operating on its current trajectory and does not raise additional capital or make significant changes.

Also called equity dilution

Dilution happens when a company issues more shares, reducing an existing holder's ownership percentage even if the value of their stake may increase.

A down round is a financing round in which a startup sells new equity at a lower valuation or lower price per share than a previous priced financing.

Dry powder is capital that an investor or fund has available to deploy but has not yet invested.

Also called round extension

An extension round is interim financing that extends the life or scope of a previous round before the next major financing.

Final close is the final transaction date that ends a fundraising process and locks the committed capital for that fund or round.

First close is the initial legal closing that turns fundraising commitments into an active fund or financing.

A flat round is a later financing priced at roughly the same valuation as the previous financing.

Also called reserves

A follow-on reserve is the portion of a venture fund's committed capital that the fund intentionally holds back for future investments in companies it has already backed.

Also called startup grant

Grant funding is money awarded by a government agency, foundation, university, nonprofit, corporation, or innovation program to support a specific project, mission, research effort, commercialization milestone, or public-interest goal.

A hair-on-fire problem is a customer problem so urgent, painful, costly, frequent, risky, or embarrassing that the customer is already trying to solve it now.

Also called startup incubator

An incubator is a support environment for turning a nascent idea or early company into a startup that is more ready for customers, funding, or an accelerator.

An indie hacker is a founder who tries to make money independently by building and selling an internet-based product, usually without venture capital, a large team, or a traditional employer.

Also called liq pref

A liquidation preference defines how preferred shareholders are paid before common shareholders in a sale, liquidation, or similar event.

Also called competitive moat

A moat is a durable competitive advantage that makes it hard for competitors to copy, undercut, replace, or erode a company's business.

Also called non-dilutive capital

Non-dilutive funding is capital a startup receives without issuing equity or reducing existing shareholders' ownership percentage.

Also called open-source go-to-market

Open-source GTM means using an open-source project as the core go-to-market engine for a commercial company.

Also called employee option pool

An option pool is a block of company equity reserved for current and future employees, advisors, and other contributors.

Also called oversubscribed

A round is oversubscribed when investors want to commit more capital than the company is willing or able to accept.

A party round is an early startup financing round with many small investors and no clear lead investor, or only a very weak lead.

Also called pay to play

In venture financing, pay-to-play is a provision that requires existing investors, usually preferred stockholders, to participate in a future financing round to preserve some or all of their preferred-stock rights.

A pivot is a structured change in a startup's product, customer, market, business model, channel, technology, or growth strategy after evidence shows that the current path is not working well enough.

Platform risk is the business and technical risk that comes from building a product, distribution channel, workflow, or business model on top of a third-party platform you do not control.

Also called pre money

Pre-money valuation is the agreed value of a company immediately before a new investment round closes.

Also called pre-seed round

Pre-seed is the earliest named startup financing stage, usually raised before a company has enough product, traction, revenue, or institutional validation to raise a traditional seed round.

Also called pro rata rights

Pro rata rights let an investor buy enough of a future financing to maintain their ownership percentage.

Also called PMF

Product-market fit is the state where a product solves an important problem for a clearly reachable market well enough that demand becomes durable and repeatable.

Also called qualified intro

A qualified introduction is a warm introduction between a founder and an investor, scout, customer, advisor, or partner where the introducer has done enough filtering to know the connection is relevant, timely, and credible.

Ramen profitable means a startup makes just enough money to cover the founders' basic living expenses, usually with an extremely lean cost structure.

Also called recap

Recapitalization, often shortened to recap, means changing a company's capital structure.

A rolling close is a financing structure where a startup completes a round through more than one closing date, accepting investment from investors as each investor is ready to sign documents and fund, while keeping the same round open for additional investors for a defined period.

Also called Simple Agreement for Future Equity

A SAFE is an agreement where an investor gives a startup money now in exchange for the right to receive equity later, usually when the company raises a priced round.

Also called discount rate

A SAFE discount is the economic term in a Simple Agreement for Future Equity that lets the SAFE investor convert their investment into stock at a lower price per share than the new investors pay in a future priced equity financing.

Also called scout economics

Scout carry is the carried-interest upside a venture scout receives for sourcing, referring, or directly investing in a startup on behalf of a venture fund.

Also called referral note

A scout note is the scout's concise investment-context note for a referred startup.

Also called VC scout program

A scout program is a structured venture-capital program that recruits external people to help a fund discover, refer, evaluate, or sometimes invest in early-stage startups.

Also called secondary transaction

A secondary sale is the sale of existing shares or other equity interests by a current holder to a new buyer.

Also called seed financing

A seed round is early outside capital raised to turn a promising startup idea or early product into a company with enough evidence for the next stage.

Also called A round

Series A is the first major priced venture round after seed, used to scale a startup that has early evidence the business can work.

Also called deal signal

A signal is a piece of evidence that changes how someone estimates a startup's quality, risk, momentum, or fit.

A solo founder is a startup founder who starts and leads a company without a cofounder.

Stealth mode is a startup operating strategy in which the company deliberately limits public visibility while it builds a product, secures intellectual property, tests privately, raises from trusted investors, or prepares a controlled launch.

Also called strategic

A strategic investor is an investor that backs a startup partly or primarily for business reasons beyond direct financial return.

Also called angel syndicate

A syndicate is a coordinated group investment into a deal, typically led by one investor and funded by multiple backers.

A syndicate lead is the person or entity responsible for leading a deal-by-deal group investment into a startup.

Technical debt is the future cost of choosing a faster, easier, or locally convenient technical approach now instead of a more sustainable approach that would make future change easier.

Technical diligence is the structured review of a company's technology, engineering practices, architecture, codebase, infrastructure, security, data, technical team, IP, and product-delivery capability before an investment, acquisition, partnership, or major enterprise purchase.

Also called financing term sheet

A term sheet summarizes the key economic and control terms of a financing before the final legal documents are drafted and signed.

Also called valuation cap

A valuation cap sets the maximum company valuation used to convert an early investment into equity, giving early investors a better price if the next round is priced higher.

Venture debt is a loan or credit facility designed for high-growth startups, typically companies that have already raised institutional venture capital and may not qualify for traditional bank debt because they lack profitability, long operating history, predictable cash flow, or hard collateral.

Also called startup studio

A venture studio is an organization that systematically creates new startups by generating or sourcing ideas, validating them, building early products, recruiting founders or operators, providing shared resources, and retaining meaningful equity in the companies it helps create.

Also called warm introduction

A warm intro is a relationship-based introduction where the intermediary's trust and context make the recipient more likely to pay attention.

Also called stock warrant

A warrant is a security or contract that gives the holder the right, but not the obligation, to buy a specified number or value of company shares at a specified exercise price before a specified expiration date.

A zombie startup is a company that is still operating but no longer has a realistic path to the outcome it was built or funded to pursue.