Catherine Lyons writes about the New Orleans entrepreneur community for NolaVie. For more information on NolaVie, visit NolaVie.com. As published by nola.com:
As I’ve done more reporting on the startup community here in New Orleans, I’ve come across some terms that caused some confusion, and made me ask my sources, “um, sorry but what is the difference between angel investments and…worldly investments?”
I’ve gotten some laughs, so to prevent further confusion (and slight embarrassment), I put together a glossary of “startup terms” that I’ve come across recently.
Seed Funding: Seed in business terms refers to a company in its early stages; seed funding is funding granted a company in its early stages, to get it off the ground. Many of the events during New Orleans Entrepreneur Week revolve around seed funding and seed “accelerators” (see term below), like Speed to Seed – a speed dating-like event for seed businesses to pitch their idea to investors.
Elevator Pitch: A pitch that companies use to tell about their products or business quickly and succinctly. It gets its name from the idea that the pitch should be able to be made in the span of an elevator ride (30 seconds to two minutes).
Angel Investment (versus venture capital): Angel investors invest their own money into a business, whereas venture capitalists invest other people’s money.