A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship includes all new businesses, including self-employment and businesses that do not intend to go public, startups are new businesses that intend to grow large beyond the solo founder. At the beginning, startups face high uncertainty and have high rates of failure, but a minority of them do go on to be successful and influential.
Vinod Khosla is an Indian-American businessman and venture capitalist. He is a co-founder of Sun Microsystems and the founder of Khosla Ventures. Khosla made his wealth from early venture capital investments in areas such as networking, software, and alternative energy technologies. He is considered one of the most successful and influential venture capitalists.
Venture capital is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which have demonstrated high growth. Venture capital firms or funds invest in these early-stage companies in exchange for equity, or an ownership stake. Venture capitalists take on the risk of financing risky start-ups in the hopes that some of the companies they support will become successful. Because startups face high uncertainty, VC investments have high rates of failure. The start-ups are usually based on an innovative technology or business model and they are usually from high technology industries, such as information technology (IT), clean technology or biotechnology.
Seed money, sometimes known as seed funding or seed capital, is a form of securities offering in which an investor invests capital in a startup company in exchange for an equity stake or convertible note stake in the company. The term seed suggests that this is a very early investment, meant to support the business until it can generate cash of its own, or until it is ready for further investments. Seed money options include friends and family funding, seed venture capital funds, angel funding, and crowdfunding.
Sequoia Capital is an American venture capital firm headquartered in Menlo Park, California which specializes in seed stage, early stage, and growth stage investments in private companies across technology sectors. As of 2022, the firm had approximately US$85 billion in assets under management.
A Business incubator is an organization that helps startup companies and individual entrepreneurs to develop their businesses by providing a fullscale range of services starting with management training and office space and ending with venture capital financing. The National Business Incubation Association (NBIA) defines business incubators as a catalyst tool for either regional or national economic development. NBIA categorizes its members' incubators by the following five incubator types: academic institutions; non-profit development corporations; for-profit property development ventures; venture capital firms, and a combination of the above.
Y Combinator (YC) is an American technology startup accelerator launched in March 2005. It has been used to launch more than 4,000 companies, including Airbnb, Coinbase, Cruise, DoorDash, Dropbox, Instacart, Quora, PagerDuty, Reddit, Stripe and Twitch. The combined valuation of the top YC companies was more than $600 billion by January 2023. The company's accelerator program started in Boston and Mountain View, expanded to San Francisco in 2019, and was entirely online during the COVID-19 pandemic. Forbes characterized the company in 2012 as one of the most successful startup accelerators in Silicon Valley.
Venture capital financing is a type of funding by venture capital. It is private equity capital that can be provided at various stages or funding rounds. Common funding rounds include early-stage seed funding in high-potential, growth companies and growth funding. Funding is provided in the interest of generating a return on investment or ROI through an eventual exit through a share sale to an investment body, another trading company or to the general public via an Initial public offering (IPO). Venture Capital can be made in four methods: 1) Equity Financing; 2) Conditional Loan; 3) Income Note; and 4) Participating Debenture.
Lucidchart is a web-based diagramming application that allows users to visually collaborate on drawing, revising and sharing charts and diagrams, and improve processes, systems, and organizational structures. It is produced by Lucid Software Inc., based in Utah, United States and co-founded by Ben Dilts and Karl Sun. Lucidchart is used by companies such as Google, GE, NBC Universal, and Amazon.
AngelList is a U.S. website for startups, angel investors, and job-seekers looking to work at startups. Founded in 2010, it started as an online introduction board for tech startups that needed seed funding. Since 2015, the site allows startups to raise money from angel investors free of charge.
Clinkle was a mobile payments company founded in 2012. In 2013 they raised $25 million and the product launched to college students on September 24, 2014.
OwnLocal is an Austin, Texas-based digital advertising startup founded in 2010.
Uncork Capital is a venture capital firm based in San Francisco, California, founded by Jeff Clavier. Considered one of the most active established seed funds in Silicon Valley, it has invested in companies such as Postmates, Eventbrite, Fitbit, and SendGrid.
In business, a unicorn is a privately held startup company valued at over US$1 billion. The term was first published in 2013, coined by venture capitalist Aileen Lee, choosing the mythical animal to represent the statistical rarity of such successful ventures.
Aileen Lee is a U.S. venture capital angel investor and co-founder of Cowboy Ventures.
Comcast Ventures was a corporate venture capital firm headquartered in San Francisco, California.
Shervin Kordary Pishevar is an Iranian-American entrepreneur, venture capitalist, super angel investor, and philanthropist. He is the co-founder and former executive chairman of Hyperloop One and a co-founder and managing director of Sherpa Capital, a venture capital fund which has invested in companies including Airbnb, Uber, GoPuff, Cue Health, Slack, Robinhood, Munchery and Postmates.
Zapier is a product that allows end users to integrate the web applications they use and automate workflows. As of 2021, it connects to more than 4,000 apps, with free and paid plans.
Ankur Jain is an American entrepreneur and investor who is the founder and CEO of Bilt Rewards, the first loyalty program that allows renters to earn points on rent. Jain has grown the company to a valuation of $1.5 billion since its launch in June, 2021.
Cyan Banister is an American angel investor and entrepreneur. She is a partner at Long Journey Ventures, an early stage venture capital fund. She was an early investor in Uber, Niantic, Postmates, DeepMind, Carta, Thumbtack, Flexport, Affirm, and SpaceX, and co-founded Zivity, an adult-themed social networking site. Banister was the first woman investing partner at the venture capital Founders Fund, where she led seed and early-stage investments.
