growth stage

Definition

The phase when a startup has proven product-market fit and focuses on scaling revenue, typically raising Series B or C funding. Where dreams of changing the world meet the reality of quarterly revenue targets.

Example Usage

We're now growth stage, which means our VC wants us to 3x revenue this year while maintaining unit economics—no big deal.

Origin

Venture capital stage classification, formalized in 1990s-2000s as industry standardized

Fun Fact

Growth stage is where most startups learn that scaling is harder than building, and many promising companies plateau or implode.

Source: Venture capital industry stage definitions

Related Terms

Advanced

dragon

A startup that returns an entire venture fund's value through a single investment, making every other deal in the portfolio irrelevant. Rarer than unicorns and more impactful than a hundred modest successes combined.

🚀 Startup / VC

Beginner

pitch deck

A PowerPoint presentation optimized for skimming, typically 10-15 slides explaining why your startup will change the world and only needs $2M to do it. It's fiction dressed up as financial projections.

🚀 Startup / VC

Intermediate

moated

Surrounded by a protective water-filled trench, which in business parlance describes a company with such strong competitive advantages that rivals can't touch them. Warren Buffett made this term famous by obsessing over companies with "economic moats" that defend market share like medieval fortifications. These days, everyone claims they have a moat, but most are more like puddles.

🚀 Startup / VC

Intermediate

full-stack startup

A company that owns and controls every layer of its product or service delivery, from manufacturing to customer experience, rather than relying on existing infrastructure or platforms. It's vertical integration for the startup age.

🚀 Startup / VC

Advanced

anti-dilution protection

A clause protecting investors from getting screwed when a company raises money at a lower valuation, automatically giving them more shares to maintain their investment value. Founders hate it; investors demand it.

🚀 Startup / VC

Advanced

recapitalization

Restructuring a company's capital stack—often a euphemism for 'things went poorly and we need to reset everyone's expectations and ownership.' Can range from modest adjustments to burning everything down and starting over.

🚀 Startup / VC

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