In the startup world, you may hear some strange jargon being thrown in conversations making you think “what is that?!”. We define some common terms here, so you too can sound like a seasoned pro 🙌

Pre-seed - A startup before any money is invested in it.

Seed - The first official investment round for a startup. At this stage, a company is usually raising funds for proof of concept or to build a prototype.

Series A - A funding round after it has shown progress in building its business model and demonstrates the potential to grow and generate revenue.

Series B - A funding round after reaching certain milestones, focused on advancing a startup beyond the development stage by expanding the company’s market reach.

Series C - A funding round that aims to scale up your startup. These companies look for additional funding in order to help them develop new products or expand into new markets.

VC (Venture Capital) - Financing provided by firms to small, high-risk, startup companies with large growth potential in return for equity.

Angel investor - A private individual who invests capital (usually in the early stages of a startup), in exchange for equity.

Unicorn - A startup company worth over US$1 billion.

Scale-up - A company past the startup stage. Companies in this stage have achieved a lot, had some impressive success and is ready to take it to the next level.

Disruptive - A product or service that aims to revolutionise an existing industry.

OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) - A goal setting framework used to define measurable goals and track their outcomes.

KPI (Key Performance Indicator) - A measurable value that demonstrates how effectively a company is achieving key business objectives.

IPO (Initial Public Offering) - The first time a company lists its shares on a public stock market.

Stakeholder - A party that has an interest and can either affect or be affected by the business e.g. employees, customers, suppliers etc.