Disrupting disruption with disruptive disruptions since 2010.
Money given to startups by firms who expect most of their investments to fail spectacularly, banking on one unicorn to pay for all the donkeys. VCs will fund almost anything if you put AI in the pitch deck and promise to disrupt something.
A Silicon Valley term for marketing on a budget, dressed up to sound like you're breaking into a mainframe. In practice, it usually means spamming people on LinkedIn and calling it a strategy.
The maximum valuation at which a convertible note or SAFE will convert to equity—a safety net for early investors betting on you when you were nobody. The lower the cap, the more expensive your desperation was.
Financial projections showing what a company's metrics would look like under hypothetical conditions or future scenarios. Latin for 'as a matter of form,' startup-ese for 'this is the fantasy we're selling investors.'
When investors, customers, or acquirers proactively reach out to a startup rather than being solicited. It's the entrepreneurial equivalent of being asked to the dance instead of doing the asking.
A mechanical advantage device that pivots on a fulcrum to multiply force, or in startup parlance, anything you can use to do more with less. Every MBA in Silicon Valley thinks they've found a "lever" to pull, usually right before asking for $5M in seed funding. Physics teachers hate how loosely VCs use this term, but hey, at least someone's paying attention to simple machines.
A venture capitalist or firm that sporadically invests in startups outside their expertise or thesis, usually during hype cycles. They show up for the party, leave before cleanup, and wonder why founders don't return their calls.
A startup that a VC firm has invested in, now living in their collection like a Pokémon card. Each firm has dozens, knowing most will fail but hoping one becomes a legendary holographic Charizard.
A clause ensuring investors get their money back first when the company sells or dies—like having a reserved lifeboat while founders and employees fight over pool floaties. Can be 1x (reasonable) or 3x (predatory).
The speed at which a VC fund invests its committed capital. Deploy too fast and you look desperate; too slow and your LPs wonder if you can actually find deals.
When a VC aggressively increases their investment in a portfolio company across multiple rounds, betting their career on being right. Conviction investing taken to its logical extreme.
Any exchange of goods, services, or money, elevated to sound more important when preceded by 'business' or followed by 'cost.' In startup world, it's the holy grail metric that proves people are actually using your product for its intended purpose rather than just kicking the tires. VCs obsess over transaction volume, transaction value, and transaction frequency as if counting exchanges of value will somehow predict the future.
A venture capital fund owned and operated by a larger corporation to invest in strategically relevant startups. They bring money and potential acquisition interest, but everyone knows who they're really working for.
The moment when something new is officially unleashed upon the world, whether it's a product, company, or ship sliding into water. In business and tech, launches involve coordinated marketing campaigns, press releases, and the collective hope that people will actually care. It's the corporate equivalent of a grand opening, complete with champagne (or energy drinks, depending on the industry).
Your master plan for how you'll actually convince humans to exchange money for your product, typically involving buzzwords like 'omnichannel' and 'vertical integration.' It's the section of your pitch deck you update most frequently as each approach fails.
An IRS-mandated appraisal of your company's common stock price, required so employees don't accidentally commit tax fraud when exercising options. It's always mysteriously lower than what you tell investors your company is worth.
Legal promises in investment agreements where founders swear everything they've said is true and the company isn't hiding skeletons. Breaking these can result in personal liability, making due diligence the most stressful time to discover that intern you hired in 2019 never signed an IP assignment.
Warrants or stock options added as sweetener to a debt deal, giving lenders upside if the company succeeds. Because apparently charging interest isn't enough—they want a piece of the action too.
The overwhelming wave of convertible notes and SAFEs that convert to equity during a priced round, often revealing a far more complex cap table than founders realized. The moment when chickens come home to roost, except the chickens are financial instruments.
A strategy where investors make many small bets, then heavily support only the winners in subsequent rounds. The venture capital version of throwing spaghetti at the wall, then only cooking the pieces that stuck.
A fancy term for someone who invests in or undertakes risky business ventures, particularly in the startup ecosystem where optimism meets capitalism. These bold souls throw money and energy at unproven business ideas, hoping to strike gold before bankruptcy strikes them. It's like being an explorer, except instead of discovering new lands, you're discovering new ways to burn through Series A funding.
The process of narrowing your target market to a smaller, more specific segment rather than trying to serve everyone. What pivoting looks like when you finally accept your TAM assumptions were delusional.
Moving to build or sell products at higher layers of technology infrastructure, typically where margins are better and you're further from commoditized infrastructure. The opposite of down-stack, and usually more profitable.
Late-stage debt or hybrid securities used to bridge the gap between venture rounds and an exit. It's called mezzanine because it sits between the ground floor (equity) and penthouse (IPO).