Startup & VC Glossary

The Deckmetric glossary covers 236 essential startup, fundraising, and venture capital terms — written for founders preparing pitch decks. Each entry includes a plain-English definition, the formula or worked example where relevant, common pitfalls, and how the concept shows up in real investor meetings.

Product & PMF

MVP — The smallest version of a product that delivers real value to early users so the team can learn what to build next.
Product-Market Fit — The point at which a product satisfies a market well enough that demand pulls the company forward instead of the team pushing it.
Pivot — A structured change in direction — usually customer, product, or business model — based on validated learning, not panic.
Lean Startup — A methodology for building startups under uncertainty using rapid Build-Measure-Learn cycles instead of long product plans.
Bootstrapping — Building a company without outside equity capital, financing growth from revenue, savings, or debt instead.
Stealth Mode — Operating without a public product or marketing presence while early development and customer work happen behind the scenes.
Customer Discovery — Structured interviews with potential customers to test whether the problem you assume exists is real and worth paying to solve.
Customer Validation — Proving that target customers will actually pay for, deploy, and renew a specific solution to the problem you discovered.
Jobs to Be Done — A framework that defines a product by the progress a customer is trying to make in their life, not by demographics or features.
User Persona — A composite description of a typical user — role, goals, constraints, behaviors — used to align product, design, and go-to-market decisions.
Aha Moment — The specific in-product event where a user first experiences the core value of the product and becomes likely to retain.
Time to Value — The elapsed time between a user signing up and reaching the first meaningful outcome the product promises.
Onboarding — The structured first-use experience that takes a new user from sign-up to the first moment of real value.
North Star Metric — The single metric that best captures the core value the product delivers and the long-term success of the business.
Vanity Metric — A metric that looks impressive in a deck but doesn't reflect the underlying health or growth of the business.
A/B Test — A controlled experiment that compares two versions of a feature, page, or flow to determine which produces a better outcome.
Feature Flag — A switch in code that lets a team turn a feature on or off for specific users or segments without redeploying.
Dogfooding — Using your own product internally for real workflows so the team experiences the same friction and bugs the customer does.

Growth & Engagement

AARRR (Pirate Metrics) — Dave McClure's five-stage growth funnel: Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Referral, and Revenue.
Acquisition Channel — A repeatable source of new users or customers, such as paid search, content SEO, partnerships, outbound sales, or virality.
Activation Rate — The percentage of new sign-ups who reach the product's defined aha moment within a target time window.
Retention Curve — A chart showing what fraction of a cohort is still active week-by-week or month-by-month after sign-up.
Viral Coefficient — The average number of new users each existing user invites who themselves convert into active users.
Conversion Rate — The percentage of users who complete a desired action — sign-up, purchase, upgrade — out of those who had the chance to.
Funnel Analysis — Decomposing a user journey into ordered steps and measuring conversion between each step to find the biggest drop-off.
Cohort Analysis — Grouping users by sign-up period and tracking each group's behavior over time to spot trends invisible in aggregate metrics.
DAU — Daily Active Users — the count of unique users who took a meaningful action in the product on a given day.
MAU — Monthly Active Users — the count of unique users who took a meaningful action in the product within a given month.
DAU/MAU Ratio — The ratio of daily to monthly active users — a measure of how many days per month the average user shows up.
Stickiness — A qualitative term for how habitual a product is, often quantified as the DAU/MAU ratio or session frequency.
Net Promoter Score — A 0-to-100 customer-loyalty score derived from one question: how likely you are to recommend the product to a friend.
Product-Led Growth — A go-to-market strategy where the product itself drives acquisition, conversion, and expansion with minimal sales involvement.
Sales-Led Growth — A go-to-market motion where dedicated sales teams identify, qualify, and close customers, typically for higher-priced or more complex products.
Freemium — A monetization model that offers a permanently free tier with limited features, monetizing a fraction of users on paid upgrades.
Free Trial — A time-limited window during which a prospect can use a paid product at no cost before being asked to convert.
Land and Expand — A motion where a small initial deployment grows into a much larger account through additional seats, products, or use cases.

Sales & GTM

Ideal Customer Profile — A precise definition of the buying organization that gets the most value from your product and is the cheapest to acquire.
TAM — Total Addressable Market — the total revenue opportunity if the product captured 100% of every customer who could conceivably buy it.
SAM — Serviceable Addressable Market — the portion of the TAM that the company's product, geography, and channels can realistically serve.
SOM — Serviceable Obtainable Market — the realistic share of SAM the company can capture in a defined planning horizon.
Bottoms-Up Market Sizing — Calculating market size by counting the actual eligible customers and multiplying by realistic per-customer revenue.
Top-Down Market Sizing — Estimating market size from a published total (analyst report, government data) and applying assumed share percentages.
Sales Development Representative — A sales rep responsible for outbound prospecting and inbound qualification, handing qualified opportunities to Account Executives.
Business Development Representative — An outbound-focused sales rep who creates pipeline by prospecting target accounts, often used interchangeably with SDR.
Account Executive — The sales rep who owns the deal cycle from qualified opportunity to signed contract, carrying revenue quota.
Customer Success Manager — The post-sale owner of the customer relationship, responsible for adoption, retention, and expansion of an account.
Sales Pipeline — The set of qualified opportunities currently moving through the sales cycle, segmented by stage and weighted by probability.
Sales Velocity — A composite measure of how quickly a sales team converts pipeline into closed revenue, derived from deals × win rate × ACV ÷ cycle length.
Win Rate — The percentage of qualified sales opportunities that result in closed-won deals over a given period.
Total Contract Value — The total value of a customer contract over its full term, including recurring fees, one-time fees, and committed expansion.

Strategy & Moats

Moat — A structural advantage that protects a business from competition over time — network effects, switching costs, scale, brand, or proprietary technology.
Network Effects — A property where each additional user makes the product more valuable for existing users, creating compounding defensibility.
Two-Sided Marketplace — A platform that connects two distinct user groups — typically buyers and sellers — and creates value by enabling transactions between them.
Take Rate — The percentage of gross transaction value a marketplace or platform retains as revenue, usually charged to the supply side, the demand side, or both.
GMV — Gross Merchandise Value — the total dollar value of transactions processed through a marketplace or platform over a given period.
Marketplace Liquidity — The probability that a buyer or seller arriving at a marketplace finds a successful match within their tolerance window.
Cold Start Problem — The chicken-and-egg challenge of bootstrapping a marketplace or network where each side requires the other to be useful.
Switching Costs — The financial, operational, or psychological cost a customer would pay to switch from one solution to a competing one.
Wedge — The narrow initial use case or segment a startup attacks first, used as the entry point into a much larger market.
Category Creation — A go-to-market strategy where a company defines and dominates a new market category instead of competing within an existing one.
Blitzscaling — Reid Hoffman's framework for prioritizing speed over efficiency to win winner-take-most markets before competitors do.
Power Law — The empirical pattern where venture returns are dominated by a tiny number of outsized winners, not by average outcomes.
Vertical SaaS — Software built specifically for a single industry — dental practices, restaurants, construction — instead of horizontal use across industries.

Funding Stages & Instruments

Pre-Seed — The earliest priced or convertible round, typically raised on an idea, prototype, or very early traction with $250K–$2M from angels and pre-seed funds.
Seed — The round raised to find product-market fit, typically $1M–$5M on $8M–$25M post-money valuations from seed and multi-stage funds.
Series A — The first major priced round, typically $8M–$20M raised on the strength of early product-market fit and a repeatable go-to-market motion.
Series B — The growth round raised to scale a proven business model, typically $20M–$50M+ on $100M–$300M post-money valuations.
Series C — A late-stage growth round used to accelerate scale, expand internationally, or prepare for an IPO, typically $50M–$200M.
Series D — Late-stage funding round, often a final pre-IPO round or a 'bridge to liquidity' for companies that have grown past Series C.
Bridge Round — A short-term funding round between priced rounds, often a SAFE or note from existing investors, used to extend runway to the next milestone.
SAFE — Y Combinator's Simple Agreement for Future Equity — a contract that gives an investor the right to equity in a future priced round, with no debt or interest.
Post-Money SAFE — The 2018 YC SAFE variant where the valuation cap is computed on a post-money basis, making the investor's ownership share predictable.
Pre-Money SAFE — The original (2013) SAFE variant where the valuation cap was computed on a pre-money basis, sharing dilution across SAFE holders.
Convertible Note — Short-term debt that converts into equity at a future priced round, typically with a discount, a valuation cap, and an interest rate.
Discount Rate (Convertible) — The percentage discount a convertible note or SAFE holder receives off the next priced round's price per share.
Valuation Cap — The maximum company valuation at which a SAFE or convertible note will convert into equity, protecting early investors from dilution at high prices.
MFN Clause — A 'Most Favored Nation' provision letting an early investor automatically adopt better terms offered to any later investor on the same instrument.
Priced Round — A funding round where investors purchase shares at an agreed price per share, establishing a clear pre-money valuation and cap-table impact.
Equity Round — Any priced funding round in which investors purchase equity in the company, as opposed to convertible instruments or debt.
Venture Debt — Debt financing extended to venture-backed startups, often used to extend runway between equity rounds with minimal additional dilution.
Revenue-Based Financing — A non-dilutive financing structure where a lender advances capital and is repaid as a fixed percentage of monthly revenue until a multiple is reached.
Equity Crowdfunding — Raising capital from a large number of small investors via online platforms under regulations like Reg CF or Reg A+ in the US.
Strategic Round — A funding round led or anchored by a corporate strategic investor (CVC) whose interest extends beyond financial returns to commercial alignment.
SEIS — UK tax-advantaged scheme giving angels up to 50% income-tax relief on up to £200k/yr invested into very early-stage UK companies.
EIS — UK scheme offering investors 30% income-tax relief on up to £1m/yr (£2m if knowledge-intensive) in qualifying UK growth-stage companies.
VCT — UK listed vehicle pooling retail money into qualifying small-company investments, giving subscribers 30% income-tax relief on up to £200k/yr.
ASA (Advance Subscription Agreement) — UK SEIS/EIS-compatible alternative to a SAFE: cash paid up-front for shares issued at the next round, with a 6-month longstop to keep relief.
R&D Tax Credits (UK) — Two HMRC schemes (SME and RDEC) refunding a percentage of qualifying R&D spend in cash or as a CT credit — often £30–80k for early-stage UK startups.
BSA-AIR — French convertible-warrant on the SAFE model: investors subscribe now and convert at the next round at a discount or cap, no current valuation set.
JEI (Jeune Entreprise Innovante) — French status for under-8-yr-old R&D-heavy companies (≥15% R&D spend), granting payroll-tax exemption on R&D staff and reduced CT in early years.
CIR (Crédit d'Impôt Recherche) — France's research tax credit: 30% refundable credit on the first €100M of qualifying R&D spend per year, paid as cash to loss-making startups.
EIC Accelerator — EU flagship deep-tech grant + equity programme: up to €2.5M grant + up to €15M EIC Fund equity per company, on a competitive 3-stage application.
Sharia-compliant financing — Funding structures (Murabaha, Mudaraba, Musharaka, Sukuk) compliant with Islamic law's ban on interest (riba), used by Sharia LPs and family offices.
Enterprise Singapore EDG / MRA Grants — Two Enterprise Singapore grants: EDG funds up to 50% of qualifying capability-building project costs; MRA funds up to 50% of overseas market entry.
Section 13O / 13U — Two Singapore tax-exemption schemes (13O for onshore funds, 13U for enhanced-tier funds) widely used by VC and PE funds for Singapore tax exemption.
R&D Tax Incentive (Australia) — Australia's flagship R&D tax credit: 43.5% refundable offset on qualifying R&D for companies with under A$20M turnover, paid as cash to startups.
SR&ED — Canada's flagship federal R&D tax credit: 35% refundable for CCPCs (first C$3M of spend), 15% non-refundable otherwise. Often the largest non-dilutive line.
Flow-Through Shares — Canadian tax instrument letting mining, oil & gas, and clean-energy issuers 'renounce' Canadian Exploration Expense to investors, who deduct it personally.
Section 80-IAC — India's tax holiday for DPIIT-recognised startups: 100% deduction of profits for any 3 consecutive years of the first 10 from incorporation, board-approved.
AIF Category I/II — India's SEBI-registered VC/PE fund vehicles: Category I (VC, SME, social, infra) and Category II (PE/debt), with pass-through tax and ₹1 Cr LP minimum.
Convertible Notes (India) — Indian convertible-note rules (Companies Act + RBI FEMA): typically Compulsorily Convertible Debentures with a 5-yr maximum tenor and FEMA-compliant pricing.

Valuation & Cap Table

Pre-Money Valuation — The agreed-upon value of the company immediately before a new investment round closes — pre-money + new money = post-money.
Post-Money Valuation — The company's value immediately after a new investment closes, equal to pre-money valuation plus the new investment amount.
Fully Diluted Shares — The total share count assuming every option, warrant, convertible note, SAFE, and reserved pool has been exercised or converted.
Option Pool — Equity reserved for future employee, advisor, and contractor grants, usually sized as 10–20% of fully diluted shares.
Option Pool Shuffle — The negotiation tactic where investors require the option pool to be expanded pre-money, diluting only the founders rather than the new investors.
Dilution — The reduction in an existing shareholder's ownership percentage caused by issuing new shares in a financing or an option grant.
Anti-Dilution (Full Ratchet) — The most aggressive anti-dilution provision: in a down round, prior preferred holders' conversion price ratchets down to the new round's price.
Anti-Dilution (Weighted Average) — A standard anti-dilution provision that adjusts a prior preferred holder's conversion price using a formula weighted by the size of the down round.
Pro Rata Rights — The right of an existing investor to participate in future rounds at a level that maintains their current ownership percentage.
Common Stock — The base equity class held by founders and employees, with voting rights but no preference rights or dividends.
Preferred Stock — The equity class issued to investors, carrying special rights such as liquidation preference, anti-dilution protection, and protective covenants.
Liquidation Preference — The right of preferred shareholders to be paid a defined amount before common shareholders receive any proceeds in a liquidation event.
Participating Preferred — A liquidation preference structure where preferred holders receive their preference and also share pro rata in the remaining proceeds — a 'double dip'.
409A Valuation — An IRS-required independent valuation of a private company's common stock, used to set the strike price for new option grants.
Down Round — A funding round priced at a lower valuation per share than the previous round, typically triggering anti-dilution adjustments and signaling stress.

Deal Terms & Legal

Term Sheet — A non-binding document outlining the principal terms of a proposed financing, used to align investor and founder before legal documents are drafted.
Cap Table — A spreadsheet or system-of-record showing every shareholder, share class, option, warrant, and convertible instrument outstanding in a company.
Vesting — The schedule by which equity grants are earned over time, typically 4 years with a 1-year cliff for founders, employees, and advisors.
Cliff — A vesting feature where no equity vests until a specified milestone (typically 1 year of service), then a chunk vests at once.
Acceleration (Single Trigger) — A vesting acceleration provision where unvested equity vests automatically on a single triggering event — typically a change of control.
Acceleration (Double Trigger) — A vesting acceleration provision requiring two events — typically a change of control AND involuntary termination — before unvested equity vests.
Drag-Along Rights — A provision allowing majority shareholders to force minority shareholders to participate in an approved sale of the company on the same terms.
Tag-Along Rights — The right of minority shareholders to join a sale by majority shareholders on the same terms, preventing 'cherry-picking' liquidity.
Right of First Refusal — The right of the company or existing investors to match any third-party offer to buy shares before the seller can transfer them externally.
Information Rights — An investor's contractual right to receive periodic financial statements, operating updates, and inspection rights from the company.
Board Seat — A formal director position on the company's board of directors, typically granted to a lead investor in a priced round.
Board Observer — A non-voting attendance right at board meetings, typically granted to follow-on investors who don't get a full board seat.
NDA — A confidentiality contract restricting how shared information may be used or disclosed; common with customers and partners but uncommon for VC pitches.
No-Shop Clause — A binding term sheet provision preventing the company from soliciting or accepting competing offers for a defined window after signing.
Founder Vesting — A vesting schedule applied to founder equity, typically required by VC investors to align founders with the long-term outcome.
Advance Assurance — Non-binding HMRC pre-clearance that a UK company's planned share issue likely qualifies for SEIS or EIS, used to de-risk angel investment.
Articles of Association (UK) — UK company's constitutional document at Companies House setting share rights, transfer restrictions, board powers, drag/tag and decision thresholds.
Substantial Shareholding Exemption — UK CT exemption letting a trading company sell a 10%+ stake in another trading company tax-free if held for 12+ months in the past six years.
Notary Requirement (Germany) — German law requiring share allotments, transfers, and capital changes in a GmbH/UG to be witnessed by a notary, adding €1–5k per cap-table change.
SFA (Singapore Founders Agreement) — Standardised early-stage funding documents (term sheet, SHA, subscription) widely used in Singapore's seed market, modelled on US YC SAFE / NVCA.
FEMA / ODI Compliance — Indian FEMA and RBI Overseas Direct Investment rules governing inbound foreign equity, share-pricing minimums, and Indian residents' overseas investments.

Returns & Fund Performance

MOIC — Multiple on Invested Capital — total value (realized + unrealized) divided by total capital invested, a simple time-insensitive return metric.
TVPI — Total Value to Paid-In capital — the sum of distributions and remaining NAV divided by capital paid in, used by VC LPs.
DPI — Distributions to Paid-In capital — the cash a fund has returned to LPs divided by total capital called, the realized portion of TVPI.
RVPI — Residual Value to Paid-In capital — the unrealized portion of fund NAV divided by capital called, the paper portion of TVPI.
IRR — Internal Rate of Return — the annualized return that makes the net present value of all fund cash flows equal to zero.
J-Curve — The pattern of early-fund losses followed by later gains as investments mature, which produces a J-shaped cumulative return chart for VC funds.
Carry (Carried Interest) — The share of fund profits paid to the GPs above a defined hurdle, typically 20% in venture funds — 'carry' is the GP's economic upside.
Management Fee — An annual fee LPs pay GPs to operate the fund, typically 2% of committed capital during the investment period and lower after.
Hurdle Rate — The minimum annualized return GPs must deliver before they can begin earning carried interest.
GP Commit — The capital General Partners personally commit to their own fund, signaling alignment with the LPs they're raising from.
ESVCLP — Australia's tax-advantaged VC fund structure granting fund-level tax exemption and a 10% non-refundable carry tax offset for LPs — used by most AU VCs.
VCLP — Australia's older, larger-fund venture structure with the same fund-level tax exemption as ESVCLP but no fund-size cap and a higher portfolio bar.

Metrics & KPIs

ARR — Annual Recurring Revenue — the value of subscription contracts on a normalized 12-month basis, the headline SaaS revenue metric.
MRR — Monthly Recurring Revenue — the normalized monthly value of all subscriptions in force, often used by month-to-month subscription businesses.
ARPU — Average Revenue Per User — total recurring revenue divided by active customer or user count, a measure of monetization depth.
ACV — Annual Contract Value — the recurring revenue value of a single customer contract on a per-year basis, a standard B2B SaaS deal-size metric.
LTV — Lifetime Value — the total margin a customer is expected to generate over their entire relationship with the company.
CAC — Customer Acquisition Cost — the total sales and marketing spend required to acquire one new paying customer over a given period.
CAC Payback Period — The number of months required for the gross profit from a customer to repay the cost of acquiring them.
LTV:CAC Ratio — The ratio of customer lifetime value to customer acquisition cost — a headline measure of unit economics health.
Gross Margin — The percentage of revenue remaining after subtracting cost of goods sold (COGS), reflecting the unit economics of delivering the product.
Net Revenue Retention — The percentage of recurring revenue retained from a cohort after one year, including expansion, contraction, and churn.
Gross Revenue Retention — The percentage of recurring revenue retained from a cohort after one year, excluding expansion — the pure retention metric.
Logo Churn — The percentage of customers (logos) who cancel in a given period, regardless of how much revenue they represented.
Revenue Churn — The percentage of recurring revenue lost from existing customers in a period through cancellation or downgrade.
Burn Rate — The rate at which a company spends cash, typically reported monthly. Reported as either gross burn or net burn.
Net Burn — Monthly cash outflow minus cash inflow — the actual rate at which the cash balance is depleted.
Gross Burn — Total monthly operating cash outflow before subtracting any revenue or financing inflow.
Runway — The number of months the current cash balance will last at the current net burn rate before the company runs out of money.
Burn Multiple — Net new ARR divided by net burn — the dollars of capital consumed per dollar of new ARR generated.
Rule of 40 — A SaaS health benchmark: revenue growth rate plus profit margin should sum to at least 40%.
Magic Number — A SaaS sales-efficiency ratio: net new ARR divided by sales and marketing spend in the prior period.

Pitch & Process

Pitch Deck — A short slide presentation a startup uses to introduce itself to investors, typically 10–20 slides covering problem, solution, market, traction, team, and ask.
Demo Day — An accelerator's culminating event where startups pitch to investors, typically a few minutes per company in front of a curated audience.
Data Room — A secure shared folder with every document an investor needs for due diligence — financials, contracts, cap table, team info, and customer references.
Due Diligence — The investigation an investor performs to verify the claims in the pitch and assess all material risks before signing a term sheet or wiring funds.
Lead Investor — The investor who sets the terms of a round, takes the largest check, and typically takes a board seat or significant governance role.
Follow-On Investor — An investor who joins a round after the lead has set the terms, taking a smaller check and rarely a board seat.
Syndicate — The group of investors participating in a round, including the lead and any follow-on investors. Also refers to angel syndicates organized through SPVs.
Bridge Loan — A short-term loan that bridges a company between funding events, often from existing investors as a SAFE or note pending the next priced round.
Letter of Intent — A non-binding document outlining the proposed terms of a customer agreement, partnership, or acquisition before formal contracts are drafted.
Closing — The legal completion of a financing round — signed documents, wired funds, updated cap table, all conditions satisfied.

People & Structures

Founder — A person who started or co-started the company and (typically) holds founder common stock subject to founder vesting.
Co-Founder — An additional founder who joined at or near the company's inception, typically holding founder common stock and a meaningful equity stake.
CEO Equity — The equity stake held by the CEO, typically the largest individual founder share, that gradually dilutes through successive funding rounds.
ESOP — Employee Stock Option Plan — the legal structure that lets a company grant options to employees at a defined strike price, governed by board approval and 409A.
Advisor Shares — Equity granted to formal advisors, typically 0.1–1% of the company per advisor, vesting over 1–4 years for ongoing involvement.
Limited Partner — A passive investor in a venture fund, providing capital but not making investment decisions, and limited in liability to their commitment amount.
General Partner — A managing partner of a venture fund, responsible for sourcing, diligence, investment decisions, and value-add to portfolio companies.
Venture Partner — A non-general-partner role at a venture firm, typically a senior operator who sources deals, advises portfolio companies, and may take a small carry.
Family Office — A private wealth-management entity investing on behalf of one family (or a few), often allocating to startups directly or via VC funds.
Sovereign Wealth Fund — A state-owned investment fund, typically funded by oil revenues or trade surpluses, that increasingly participates in late-stage venture and growth rounds.
Companies House Filing — Mandatory public filings every UK Ltd makes to Companies House — incorporation, share allotments, PSC register, accounts, and confirmation statement.
Confirmation Statement — Annual UK Companies House filing (CS01) confirming directors, registered address, share capital, and persons with significant control are still accurate.
GmbH — Standard German limited-liability company: ≥€25k share capital (half paid in at incorporation), notarised formation. Default for German VC startups.
UG (haftungsbeschränkt) — 'Mini-GmbH' German form founded with as little as €1 capital but must retain 25% of profits annually until €25k, then convert to a full GmbH.
KGaA — German hybrid 'partnership limited by shares' used by founder-led companies seeking a public listing while keeping a general partner in firm control.
AG (Aktiengesellschaft) — German stock-corporation form (€50k min capital, two-tier board) used for IPOs and large companies but considered too rigid for venture rounds.
Bpifrance — France's state-owned investment bank, providing equity, grants, and innovation loans to French startups and acting as a fund-of-funds anchor LP.
EIF (European Investment Fund) — EU fund-of-funds investing in European VC and PE funds — the largest single LP in European venture and a key anchor for first-time fund managers.
ADGM — Abu Dhabi's English-common-law financial free zone: Cayman/Delaware-style law, 100% foreign ownership, zero CT. Popular for VC funds and tech holdcos.
DIFC — Dubai's English-common-law financial free zone, regulated by the DFSA with its own DIFC Courts. Preferred holdco for MENA fintechs and asset managers.
Free Zone Company — UAE company in one of 45+ specialised free zones (DMCC, RAKEZ, Hub71): 100% foreign ownership, zero personal tax, but limited mainland trading.
Mainland LLC (UAE) — UAE limited-liability company under federal commercial law, free to trade across the UAE mainland. Foreign ownership up to 100% in most sectors.
Golden Visa (UAE) — 10-year renewable UAE residency visa for investors, founders, and high-skill specialists, decoupled from employer sponsorship — a talent lever.
Dubai Future District Fund — AED 1B Dubai government fund-of-funds and direct investor backing early-stage tech startups based in or relocating to Dubai's Future District.
Hub71 — Abu Dhabi's flagship startup hub, offering free-zone licensing, subsidised housing/office, and equity-free incentives worth $5k–$250k/yr to founders.
Mubadala / PIF — Two dominant MENA sovereign wealth funds (Mubadala $300B, PIF $925B AUM), anchor LPs in global VC funds and direct investors in late-stage tech.
Pte Ltd (Singapore) — Singapore's standard private limited company: minimum S$1 paid-up capital, one director and one shareholder — default holdco for SE-Asia tech startups.
ACRA Filing — Mandatory filings every Singapore Pte Ltd lodges with ACRA — incorporation, annual return, financial statements, and changes to directors or capital.
EntrePass — Singapore work pass for foreign founders of a venture-backed Pte Ltd, with eligibility tied to funding raised, IP, accelerators, or innovation track record.
Tech.Pass — Singapore work pass for established tech execs and founders (S$22.5k+/mo or 5+ yrs at a $500M+ tech firm) — the most flexible tech-talent pass.
EDBI — Corporate investment arm of Singapore's Economic Development Board, investing in growth-stage tech globally to anchor company HQs and R&D in Singapore.
Temasek — Singapore's $390B+ state-owned investment company, active across late-stage tech, financial services, and infrastructure as a direct investor and global LP.
Pty Ltd (Australia) — Australia's standard private-company structure — at least one Australian-resident director, no minimum share capital, ASIC-registered. Default for AU VC.
ASIC Filing — Mandatory filings every Australian Pty Ltd lodges with ASIC — incorporation, annual review, share-capital and director changes within 28 days of the event.
Significant Investor Visa (Australia) — Australian residency-by-investment visa requiring A$5M of complying investments (with mandatory venture/emerging-companies allocation) — a major LP source.
CCPC — Private Canadian corporation controlled by Canadian residents — eligible for the Small Business Deduction (lower CT rate) and SR&ED enhanced 35% credit.
BDC — Canada's federal development bank — providing growth-stage loans, venture equity (BDC Capital), and women-/Indigenous-focused funds. Frequent VC anchor LP.
DPIIT-Recognised Startup — Indian government recognition (Startup India) for under-10-yr-old, sub-₹100 Cr-revenue innovative companies — unlocks tax holidays and angel-tax exemption.
GIFT City Fund Structures — India's IFSC at Gandhinagar — tax-favoured (10-yr CT holiday, no STT), now a popular domicile for India-focused VC funds and family offices.

Equity Comp & Exits

ISO — A US tax-advantaged stock option for W-2 employees, eligible for long-term capital-gains treatment if holding-period requirements are met.
NSO — Non-Qualified Stock Options — a more flexible US option type than ISOs, available to contractors and advisors but without the same tax-advantaged treatment.
RSU — Restricted Stock Units — equity compensation that vests into shares without requiring exercise, common at late-stage and public companies.
Strike Price — The fixed price at which an option holder can purchase a share, set at fair market value on the grant date and locked in for the option's life.
83(b) Election — A US tax election letting restricted-stock recipients pay tax on the grant-date value (not at vesting), often saving early-stage founders meaningful tax.
Secondary Sale — A sale of existing shareholder stock (founders, employees, or early investors) to a new investor, providing partial liquidity before an IPO or acquisition.
Tender Offer — A company-organized program letting employees and early investors sell a portion of their shares back to the company or to outside investors at a set price.
IPO — Initial Public Offering — the first sale of a company's shares to public investors, transforming the company from private to publicly traded.
SPAC — A publicly listed shell company that raises capital to acquire and merge with a private company, offering an alternative route to the public markets.
Acquihire — An acquisition primarily motivated by the acquirer's desire to hire the target company's team, with little value placed on the product or revenue.
Earnout — A portion of acquisition consideration paid only if the acquired company hits specified post-close performance milestones over a defined period.
Lockup Period — The post-IPO window — typically 90–180 days — during which insiders are contractually prohibited from selling their shares on the public market.
EMI Options — UK tax-advantaged share-option scheme letting qualifying companies grant employees up to £250k of options each, taxed at 10% CGT not income.
VSOPs (Virtual Stock Options) — Cash-settled phantom-share grants used by German GmbHs to give employees economic equity exposure without notarisation costs of issuing real shares.
BSPCE — France's tax-advantaged employee stock-option scheme: gains taxed at flat 30% PFU for employees with 3+ years' service, or 12.8% income tax otherwise.
ESS Startup Concessions (Australia) — Australia's tax concession for employee share schemes at qualifying startups: no upfront tax on grant, CGT on sale (50% discount after 12 months held).
Stock Option Deduction (Canada) — Canadian Income Tax Act §110(1)(d) deduction excluding 50% of stock-option exercise gains from employment income — capped at C$200k/yr for non-CCPCs.
ESOP under Companies Act 2013 (India) — Indian employee stock-option scheme under §62(1)(b) of the Companies Act 2013 — granted to employees and directors (excluding promoters), 1-yr vesting cliff.