A List of Essential Venture Capital Terminology

By
Ivelina D
October 23, 2024
2 min
read

Table of Contents

There's a lot of terminology to know when it comes to startups & VC.

Below is a collection of the 90 most important terms to know.

This article is in collaboration with GoingVC, read the full piece over here.

🟣 Accelerator

🟣 Acquisition

🟣 Angel Investor

🟣 Anti-Dilution Provision

🟣 Bootstrapping

🟣 Bridge Financing

🟣 Burn Rate

🟣 Buyout

🟣 Benchmarks

🟣 Capital Call

🟣 Capital Under Management

🟣 Cap Table (Capitalization Table)

🟣 Carry (Carried Interest)

🟣 Convertible Note

🟣 Crowdfunding

🟣 Deal Flow

🟣 Due Diligence

🟣 Dilution

🟣 Drag-Along Rights

🟣 Exit Strategy

🟣 Equity Financing

🟣 EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization)

🟣 Early-Stage Funding

🟣 Follow-on Investment

🟣 Fund of Funds

🟣 Founder’s Stock

🟣 Full Ratchet

🟣 Family Office

🟣 Growth Stage

🟣 GP (General Partner)

🟣 Hurdle Rate

🟣 Harvest Period

🟣 IPO (Initial Public Offering)

🟣 Incubator

🟣 Internal Rate of Return (IRR)

🟣 Investment Committee

🟣 J-Curve

🟣 KPI (Key Performance Indicator)

🟣 Lead Investor

🟣 Limited Partner (LP)

🟣 Liquidation Preference

🟣 Management Fee

🟣 Market Capitalization

🟣 Mezzanine Financing

🟣 Multiples

🟣 Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA)

🟣 Net Asset Value (NAV)

🟣 Non-Dilutive Funding

🟣 Option Pool

🟣 Overhang

🟣 Operational Support

🟣 Pivot

🟣 Preferred Stock

🟣 Pre-Money Valuation

🟣 Post-Money Valuation

🟣 PIPE (Private Investment in Public Equity)

🟣 Quorum

🟣 Quick Ratio

🟣 ROI (Return on Investment)

🟣 Round

🟣 Runway

🟣 Recapitalization

🟣 Seed Capital

🟣 Series A, B, C Funding

🟣 Syndicate

🟣 Strategic Investor

🟣 SAFE (Simple Agreement for Future Equity)

🟣 Term Sheet

🟣 Traction

🟣 Total Addressable Market (TAM)

🟣 Trade Sale

🟣 Unicorn

🟣 Unsecured Debt

🟣 Valuation

🟣 Vesting

🟣 Venture Debt

🟣 Vintage Year

🟣 Warrants

🟣 Waterfall

🟣 Exit Multiple

🟣 Yield

🟣 Zero-Based Budgeting

🟣 Venture Partner

🟣 Side Letter

🟣 Clawback

🟣 Convertible Preferred Stock

🟣 General Solicitation

🟣 Management Buyout (MBO)

🟣 Pre-Seed Funding

🟣 Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV)I hope this list was helpful!

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