Funding Glossary
Browse 17 funding terms defined in plain English, from the cultural dictionary of computing.
17 Funding Terms
- Bootstrap Funding
- Capital supplied by founders, early revenue, or other non-institutional sources rather than external venture financing. It typically implies tighter spending...
- Bootstrapped
- Built and grown primarily without outside institutional investment, usually through founder capital and customer revenue. Bootstrapped companies often trade...
- CVC
- Short for corporate venture capital, referring to startup investment activity by established corporations. CVC can provide strategic distribution and...
- Early Stage
- Describing companies that are still in the formative phase of validating product, customers, team, and business model, often before significant scale. The...
- GitHub Sponsors
- GitHub’s funding feature that lets individuals or organizations financially support open source maintainers and projects through recurring sponsorships. It is...
- Gratipay
- A historical platform for recurring small donations that was used by some open source maintainers and projects before shutting down. It is often mentioned as...
- Non-Dilutive
- Describing funding that does not require giving up ownership in the company, such as revenue financing, grants, or certain forms of debt. Non-dilutive capital...
- Open Collective
- A platform used by open source projects and communities to collect funds transparently, manage expenses, and show how money is spent. It is widely used to...
- Open Source Sustainability
- The challenge of keeping open source projects viable over the long term through funding, governance, contributor health, maintenance capacity, and realistic...
- Project Funding
- The money or financial support that sustains a project's maintenance, development, infrastructure, or contributors. In open-source culture, project funding is...
- SAFE
- Simple Agreement for Future Equity — a Y Combinator-created investment instrument where investors provide capital now in exchange for equity later (at the next...
- Series A
- The first significant round of venture capital financing, typically raising $5-20M at a $20-100M valuation. Comes after seed funding and requires evidence of...
- Sponsorship
- Financial support provided by individuals or organizations to maintainers, projects, foundations, or community events in exchange for recognition,...
- Startup Accelerator
- A program that gives early-stage startups mentorship, network access, limited funding, and a fixed-duration growth structure, often ending in a demo day....
- Tidelift
- A company and service model focused on helping organizations manage open source dependencies while directing funding and maintenance expectations toward...
- VC
- Short for venture capital or venture capitalist, depending on context. In startup speech, 'VC' can mean the asset class, the firm, or the individual investor...
- Venture Capital
- A form of private investment capital used to back startups and other high-growth private companies in exchange for equity. Venture capital expects a small...
Related Topics
- Open Source (5 terms in common)
- Startups (4 terms in common)
- Investors (3 terms in common)
- Maintainers (2 terms in common)
- Self Financing (1 terms in common)
- Independence (1 terms in common)
- Mentorship (1 terms in common)
- Venture Capital (1 terms in common)
- Founders (1 terms in common)
- Grants (1 terms in common)
- Corporate Venture Capital (1 terms in common)
- Github (1 terms in common)
- Communities (1 terms in common)
- Company Stage (1 terms in common)
- Supply Chain (1 terms in common)
- Sponsorship (1 terms in common)
- Seed (1 terms in common)
- Transparency (1 terms in common)
- Maintenance (1 terms in common)
- Growth (1 terms in common)