tiger cub

Definition

Venture funds started by former Tiger Global partners or investors, inheriting their aggressive growth-at-all-costs investment philosophy. They're the offspring that learned well from their parent's playbook.

Example Usage

Three tiger cubs competed for our Series B, each offering similar high valuations and minimal diligence.

Origin

Derived from 'Tiger Cubs' in hedge funds—managers who worked for Julian Robertson's Tiger Management

Fun Fact

Tiger cubs proliferated during 2020-2021, flooding the market with capital and inflating valuations before the 2022 correction humbled many of them.

Source: Venture capital industry structure terminology

Related Terms

Beginner

transaction

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.

🚀 Startup / VC

Intermediate

micro-VC

A venture fund typically under $50M that invests small checks in very early-stage startups. They offer founder-friendly terms and actual attention, mainly because they can't afford fancy offices or ignore their investments.

🚀 Startup / VC

Beginner

LP

Limited Partner, the institutional investors and wealthy individuals who provide capital to VC funds, essentially the VCs' VCs. They're the puppetmasters who rarely appear but whose capital enables the whole show.

🚀 Startup / VC

Beginner

hot deal

A startup fundraising round with overwhelming investor demand, usually led by a top-tier firm with multiple others fighting for allocation. The velvet rope nightclub of venture capital.

🚀 Startup / VC

Beginner

incubation

The magical period where startup founders burn through investor cash while "validating their business model," ostensibly nurturing their fledgling company from idea to viable business. Like hatching eggs, except the eggs cost millions of dollars and most of them produce nothing. Incubators and accelerators love this word because it makes burning money sound scientific and inevitable.

🚀 Startup / VC

Advanced

reps and warranties

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.

🚀 Startup / VC

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