Acqui-hire - Acqui-hiring or Acq-hiring is a common trend in the startups world, describing the process of acquiring talents from other companies, rather than gaining control of its products or services.

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Acquisition - An acquisition is when one company purchases most or all of another company's shares to gain control of that company. Purchasing more than 50% of a target firm's stock and other assets allows the acquirer to make decisions about the newly acquired assets without the approval of the company’s other shareholders. Acquisitions, which are very common in business, may occur with the target company's approval, or in spite of its disapproval. With approval, there is often a no-shop clause during the process.

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Accelerator - A startup accelerator, sometimes referred to as a seed accelerator, is a business program that supports early-stage, growth-driven companies through education, mentorship and financing. Startups typically enter accelerators for a fixed period of time and as part of a cohort of companies. While accelerator programs can provide beneficial resources to organizations at all stages of development, most focus on those that are pre-revenue.

A startup accelerator provides resources and services such as guest speakers, advising hours, a negotiated amount of capital and sometimes a shared coworking space. Term periods average around 3-4 months and require anywhere around 3-8% ownership of the startup. The assistance of an accelerator ends with a demo day, when startups present their work and proceed independently.

 

Angel - An angel investor (also known as a private investor, seed investor or angel funder) is a high-net-worth individual who provides financial backing for small startups or entrepreneurs, typically in exchange for ownership equity in the company. Often, angel investors are found among an entrepreneur's family and friends. The funds that angel investors provide may be a one-time investment to help the business get off the ground or an ongoing injection to support and carry the company through its difficult early stages.

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B2B - Business-to-business (B2B), also called B-to-B, is a form of transaction between businesses, such as one involving a manufacturer and wholesaler, or a wholesaler and a retailer. Business-to-business refers to business that is conducted between companies, rather than between a company and individual consumer.

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B2C - The term business-to-consumer (B2C) refers to the process of selling products and services directly between a business and consumers who are the end-users of its products or services. Most companies that sell directly to consumers can be referred to as B2C companies.

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Bootstrap - Bootstrapping describes a situation in which an entrepreneur starts a company with little capital, relying on money other than outside investments. An individual is said to be bootstrapping when they attempt to found and build a company from personal finances or the operating revenues of the new company.

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Burn rate - The burn rate is typically used to describe the rate at which a new company is spending its venture capital to finance overhead before generating positive cash flow from operations. It is a measure of negative cash flow. The Burn Rate makes it possible to predict a company's chances of survival thus allows for proper planning of fundraising cycles. There are different methods for calculating this ratio.

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Business plan - A business plan is a written document that describes in detail how a business - usually a startup - defines its objectives and how it is to go about achieving its goals. A business plan lays out a written roadmap for the firm from marketing, financial, and operational standpoints. Business Plan includes the company's description and a background of each of the it's team.

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CAC - CAC or Customer Acquisition Cost - measures how much an organization spends to acquire new customers. CAC – an important business metric – is the total cost of sales and marketing efforts, as well as property or equipment, needed to convince a customer to buy a product or service.

 

Competitive edge - Competitive edge refers to factors that allow a company to produce goods or services better or more cheaply than its rivals. These factors allow the productive entity to generate more sales or superior margins compared to its market rivals. Competitive edge includes a variety of factors such as: cost structure, branding, the quality of product offerings, the distributing network, intellectual property, and customer service.

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Customer segmentation - the practice of dividing a company's customers into groups that reflect similarity among customers in each group. The goal of segmenting customers is to decide how to relate to customers in each segment to maximize the value of each customer to the business.

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Deal flow - Deal flow is a term used by finance professionals to refer to the stream of offers or opportunities as a collective whole. An organization's deal flow is considered "good" if it results in enough revenue- or equity-generating opportunities to keep the organization functioning at peak capacity.

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Dividend - A dividend is the distribution of some of a company's earnings to a class of its shareholders, as determined by the company's board of directors. Common shareholders of dividend-paying companies are typically eligible as long as they own the stock before the ex-dividend date.

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Drill Down - Drill down is a term used to describe shifting from an overview of data to a more detailed and granular view. It enables exploration of specific information from different angles by stepping down from one level of a predefined data hierarchy to the next. For example, in any general presentation, investors might want to see the details to understand the overall results.

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Due Diligence - Due Diligence is the process of reviewing a company for the purpose of confirming its viability in order to try and reduce the risk of acquisition. The process may include accounting, legal, identification of future trends in the company's operations, as well as identification of business opportunities and risks.

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Equity - Equity, an accounting term, representing the owner's shares in the Company's financing in addition to profits (or losses) accrued during the Company's operations.

Equity typically represents the amount of money that would be returned to a company's shareholders if all of the assets were liquidated and all of the company's debt was paid off in the case of liquidation. In the case of acquisition, it is the value of company sales minus any liabilities owed by the company not transferred with the sale.

It is customary to divide it into share capital, capital funds and surpluses.

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Early stage - first stages in a startup life cycle. In the early-stage startups focus on Pre-seed and seed funding, product development, building a customer base and establishing a strong cash flow.

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Ecosystem - Entrepreneurial ecosystem is a community of interdependent actors and relations directly or indirectly supporting the creation and growth of new ventures in a particular geographic environment of sector of interest. The essence of an entrepreneurial ecosystem is its people and the culture of trust and collaboration that allows them to interact successfully. An ecosystem that allows for the fast flow of talent, information, and resources helps entrepreneurs quickly find what they need at each stage of growth. As a result, the whole is greater than the sum of its separate parts.

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Elevator pitch - Elevator pitch is a slang term used to describe a brief speech that outlines an idea for a product, service, or project. The name comes from the notion that the speech should be delivered in the short time period of an elevator ride. A good rule of thumb is that an elevator pitch should be approximately 30 seconds long, with a maximum of 60 seconds.

In the financial world, an elevator pitch refers to an entrepreneur's attempt to convince a venture capitalist that a business idea is worth investing in. Generally, a successful elevator pitch will be enough to pique an investor's curiosity and sets the stage for a follow-up meeting. It's during this meeting that the entrepreneur will present the investor with a more formal presentation in the hopes of raising seed capital.

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Executive Summary - An executive summary summarizes the key points of a report. It should restate the purpose of the report, highlight the major points of the report, and describe any results, conclusions, or recommendations from the report, i.e. the summary of the initiative for the investor.

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Exit strategy - An exit strategy is a contingency plan that is executed by an investor, trader, Ventures capitalist, or business owner to liquidate a position in a financial asset or dispose of tangible business assets once predetermined criteria for either has been met or exceeded.

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Exit Strategy - An exit strategy is a contingency plan to liquidate a position in a financial asset or dispose of tangible business assets once predetermined criteria for either has been met or exceeded. Already in the first meetings with funds and investors, it is customary to ask the entrepreneurs what the company's exit strategy is.

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Financial Investor - Financial Investor means any Person who is engaged in the business of making investments in a company, in order to gain a financial return for investment purposes, such as angel investors, venture capitalists, private equity investors, and so forth. Investments are done in accordance with the expected level of risk of the company (the higher the expected level of risk, the higher the level of return that the investor is expecting).

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Go To Market - Go-to-market or go-to-market strategy is the plan of an organization, utilizing their outside resources (e.g. sales force and distributors), to deliver their unique value proposition to customers and achieve competitive advantage. The end goal is to enhance the overall customer experience by offering a superior product and/or more competitive pricing.

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Growth stage - In the growth phase, companies experience rapid sales growth. As sales increase rapidly, businesses start seeing profit once they pass the break-even point. Usually refers to a company which is raising money for at least the 2nd time.

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Hackathon - A hackathon is a design sprint-like event, often, in which computer programmers, developers, project managers, graphic designers, interface designers, domain experts and others collaborate intensively in developing several projects in parallel during a specified amount of time. The goal of a hackathon is to create functioning product by the end of the event. Hackathons tend to have a specific focus, which can include any subject of the participating demographic group, with no restriction on the type of software being created. Many Hackathons concludes with a competition between the participating groups.

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Incubator - An incubator is an organization that helps startup companies and individual entrepreneurs to develop their businesses by providing a full-scale range of services starting with management training and office space and ending with venture capital financing. An Incubators is a catalyst tool for either regional or national economic development.

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Intellectual Property - Intellectual property is a juridical discipline that deals with the exclusive copyright on a particular idea or work defined by law. This includes the value of a company's employee knowledge, skills, business training, or any proprietary information that may provide the company with a competitive advantage.

Intellectual property is considered an asset, and can broadly be defined as the collection of all informational resources a company has at its disposal that can be used to drive profits, gain new customers, create new products, or otherwise improve the business. It is the sum of employee expertise, organizational processes, and other intangibles that contribute to a company's bottom line.

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IPO – initial public offering - Due Diligence is the process of reviewing a company for the purpose of confirming its viability in order to try and reduce the risk of acquisition. The process may include accounting, legal, identification of future trends in the company's operations, as well as identification of business opportunities and risks.
 

K.I.S.S – or Keep It Simple Stupid is a design principle stating that most systems work best if they are kept simple rather than made complicated; therefore, simplicity should be a key goal in design, and unnecessary complexity should be avoided. This principle can be implemented in any situation, including business activity, such as planning, managing and developing.

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KPI’s - Key performance indicators (KPIs) refer to a set of quantifiable measurements used to gauge a company’s overall long-term performance. KPIs specifically help determine a company's strategic, financial, and operational achievements, especially compared to those of other businesses within the same sector.

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Late stage - A company that is 6-12 months away from an issuing or liquidity event such as purchase of the company.

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Lean Startup - A lean startup phrase stands for implementing a quick prototype within a business, while involving customers at an early stage compared to traditional businesses. The immediate feedback received from the customers are embedded in the initial product or service (Minimal Viable Product). This method is used to fund a new company or introduce a new product on behalf of an existing company. The lean startup method advocates developing products that consumers have already demonstrated they desire so that a market will already exist as soon as the product is launched.

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Maturity - A stage in a company's life, in which it becomes operationally balanced, i.e., it has regular sales and is positioned as a competitor in customer's awareness. In this stage, is has passed both the emerging and growth phases of industry growth.

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Meetup - An informal meeting or get-together of people who frequently use their cell phones to communicate with others often do so to arrange face-to-face meetings.An informal meeting or get-together of people for professional content regarding startups, entrepreneurship and technology. The meetings are an opportunity to gain knowledge and make connections. The name is derived from a company that is most often used for event sharing, which was founded in 2002 and is a source of social networking for registering and distributing events. 
 

Name-dropping - Name-dropping is the practice of naming or alluding to important people and institutions within a conversation, story, song, online identity, or other communication. The term often connotes an attempt to impress others.

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Networking - Networking is the exchange of information and ideas among people with a common profession or special interest, usually in an informal social setting. Networking often begins with a single point of common ground.

Professionals use networking to expand their circles of acquaintances, find out about job opportunities in their fields, and increase their awareness of news and trends in their fields or the greater world.

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Non-disclosure agreement – NDA - A non-disclosure agreement is a legally binding contract that establishes a confidential relationship. The party or parties signing the agreement agree that sensitive information they may obtain will not be made available to any others. An NDA may also be referred to as a confidentiality agreement. Non-Disclosure agreements are common for businesses entering into negotiations with other businesses. They allow the parties to share sensitive information without fear that it will end up in the hands of competitors. In this case, it may be called a mutual non-disclosure agreement.

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OCS funded Incubator - In Israel, this refers to incubators working under the rules of the Innovation Authority (formerly the Chief Scientist). The incubator is a business entity that allows entrepreneurs in the initial stages (Seed) to set up a startup, usually for a product dealing with new technology under research and development stages. In an funded incubator, the entrepreneurs will receive, for a fixed period, a work environment, assistance and guidance as well as financing until they reach an independent commercial product or start additional rounds of raising funds from investors. In addition to these, the incubator can help setting up business and strategic connections. All those benefits come in exchange for some of the ownership of the company. The Seed phase is often known as a phase with great financial risk, but the chance of a return in case of success is also high.

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Pivot - A pivot point is highly connected to a Lean Startup, based on "build-measure-learn" feedback loop. It is a technical analysis indicator, used to determine the overall trend of the market over different time frames. The pivot point it is the average of the intraday high and low, and the closing price from the previous trading day.

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Portfolio company - A portfolio company is a company or entity in which a venture capital firm, a startup, or a holding company invests. All companies currently backed by a private equity firm can be spoken of as the firm's portfolio.

A company may create a portfolio to showcase the capabilities and strengths of the business's services. The portfolio is a collection of the products, services and achievements of the company. The goal of a company portfolio is to create a presence of the business on the market, attract more customers and to show how the business differs from its direct competitors on the market. The company portfolio is also used as a business strategy to show the growth of the company to attract potential investors and shareholders.

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Pre Money Valuation - A company's pre-money value is the amount that an investor and the company agree to deem the company to be worth immediately prior to the investor's investment, for the purpose of determining how much the investor will pay per share for the stock it is purchasing.

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Pre-seed Round - A Pre-Seed round is a pre-institutional seed round that either has no institutional investors or is a very low amount, often below $150k. Usually occurs before the in-depth economic examination of the product. Seed rounds are among the first rounds of funding a company will receive, generally while the company is young and working to gain traction.

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Profit and Loss – P&L -The term profit and loss (P&L) statement refers to a financial statement that summarizes the revenues, costs, and expenses incurred during a specified period, usually a quarter or fiscal year. These records provide information about a company's ability or inability to generate profit by increasing revenue, reducing costs, or both. These statements are often presented on a cash or accrual basis.

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Public company - A public company—also called a publicly traded company—is a corporation whose shareholders have a claim to part of the company's assets and profits. Through the free trade of shares of stock on stock exchanges or over-the-counter (OTC) markets, ownership of a public company is distributed among general public shareholders.

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קרן השקעות פרטית (Private equity – PE) - קרן המגייסת כספים ממשקיעים פרטיים ומוסדיים ומשקיעה אותם בחברות בעלות פוטנציאל ל-IPO או Exit עתידי. ניתן לבדל את ה-PE מה-VC בכך שלרוב משקיע ה-PE הינו בעל אסטרטגיה לשליטה בחברה בוגרת, בעלת מוצר / שירות והכנסות.

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Realization ratio - Realization Ratio is number of shares (or assets) that an investor will receive as a result of realizing one

option (1: 1)

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Return on investment – ROI - Return on investment (ROI) is a performance measure used to evaluate the efficiency or profitability of an investment or compare the efficiency of a number of different investments. ROI tries to directly measure the amount of return on a particular investment, relative to the investment’s cost.

To calculate ROI, the benefit (or return) of an investment is divided by the cost of the investment. The result is expressed as a percentage or a ratio.

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Road show - A roadshow is a series of presentations made in various locations leading up to an Initial Public Offering (IPO). The roadshow is a sales pitch or promotion made by the underwriting firm and a company's management team to potential investors before going public.

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Sales - Sales refer to the amount of money accumulated as a result of company's transactions in which it receives tangible or intangible goods, services, or assets in exchange for money. In some cases, other assets are paid to a seller. In the financial markets, a sale can also refer to an agreement that a buyer and seller make regarding the price of a security.

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Scaling - Scaling occurs when an organization experiences faster incomes than expenses, meaning lower price for a unit.

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Seed Round - Usually a first round of raising, which is done at a stage when the entrepreneurs can present a business plan with a description of the company's product, while proving initial feasibility for financial gain. The Seed phase is often known as a phase with great financial risk, but with a high chance of a return in case of success.

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Series A round - Series A round - Once a business has developed a track record (an established user base, consistent revenue figures, or some other key performance indicator), that company may opt for further optimizing its user base and product offerings, opportunities may be taken to scale the product across different markets. In this round, it’s important to have a plan for developing a business model that will generate long-term profit.

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Series B round - Series B rounds are all about taking businesses to the next level, past the development stage. Investors help startups get there by expanding market reach. Companies that have gone through seed and Series A funding rounds have already developed substantial user bases and have proven to investors that they are prepared for success on a larger scale. Series B funding is used to grow the company so that it can meet these levels of demand.

 

Series C round - Series C round - Businesses that make it to Series C funding sessions are already quite successful. These companies look for additional funding in order to help them develop new products, expand into new markets, or even to acquire other companies. In Series C rounds, investors inject capital into the meat of successful businesses, in an effort to receive more than double that amount back. Series C funding is focused on scaling the company, growing as quickly and as successfully as possible.

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Startup - The term startup refers to a business venture yet in its risky position, with potential for rapid growth, describing the first stages of operation. Startups are founded by one or more entrepreneurs who want to develop a product or service for which they believe there is demand. These companies generally start with high costs and limited revenue, which is why they look for capital from a variety of sources such as venture capitalists.

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Strategic investor - Individual investors or firms who invest with the goal of acquiring strategic advantages rather than simply financial returns are called Strategic Investors. For e.g., investing in a new product or idea to have more of a say in its later development and direction, rather than to earn money from its sales is a Strategic Investment. A Strategic Investor often wants access to the invested business technology, ideas, services, or products, to enhance its own business model. 

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Term-Sheet - A term sheet is a nonbinding agreement that shows the basic terms and conditions of an investment. The term sheet serves as a template and basis for more detailed, legally binding documents. Once the parties involved reach an agreement on the details laid out in the term sheet, a binding agreement or contract that conforms to the term sheet details is drawn up.

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Unicorn - "Unicorn" is a term used in the venture capital industry to describe a privately held startup company with a value of over $1 billion. The term was first popularized by venture capitalist Aileen Lee, founder of Cowboy Ventures, a seed-stage venture capital fund based in Palo Alto, California.

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Venture capital – VC - Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity and a type of financing that investors provide to startup companies and small businesses that are believed to have long-term growth potential. Venture capital generally comes from well-off investors, investment banks, and any other financial institutions. However, it does not always take a monetary form; it can also be provided in the form of technical or managerial expertise. Venture capital is typically allocated to small companies with exceptional growth potential, or to companies that have grown quickly and appear poised to continue to expand.

Though it can be risky for investors who put up funds, the potential for above-average returns is an attractive payoff. As a result, the investment amounts are particularly high. Funds specialize in a variety of sectors (Fintec, IoT, etc.).

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Washout round - A wash-out round (also known as "burn-out round" or "cram-down deal") is when a round of new financing usurps control of previous equity holders. When such financing is done, the new issuance drastically dilutes the ownership stake of previous investors and owners. New investors are thus able to take control of the company because the previous owners are in desperate need of more financing to avoid bankruptcy. Wash-out rounds are most often associated with smaller companies or with startup ventures that lack financial stability or a strong management team.

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Working capital - Working capital, also known as net working capital (NWC), is the difference between a company’s current assets—such as cash, accounts receivable/customers’ unpaid bills, and inventories of raw materials and finished goods—and its current liabilities, such as accounts payable and debts.

NWC is a measure of a company’s liquidity, operational efficiency, and short-term financial health. If a company has substantial positive NWC, then it should have the potential to invest and grow. If a company’s current assets do not exceed its current liabilities, then it may have trouble growing or paying back creditors. It might even go bankrupt.