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Investor types and Investment rounds types
Investor types and Investment rounds types

The type of profiles we have for investors, and how we categorize the types of rounds.

Updated over a week ago

Investor types


Accelerators

Fixed-term, cohort-based programs that include seed investment, connections, sales, mentorship, educational components, and culminate in a public pitch event or demo day to accelerate growth.
Example: Y Combinator

Angels

Individuals who provide capital for a business start-up.
Example: Marc Benioff

Corporates

Large companies investing in startups, sometimes via a Corporate Venture Fund (CVC).
Example: Amazon.com

Venture capital (VC)

These are investment funds that manage the money of investors who seek private equity stakes in startups and small- to medium-sized enterprises with strong growth potential.
Example: LocalGlobe

Private equity

Private equity funds more closely resemble venture capital firms in that they invest directly in companies, primarily by purchasing private companies, although they sometimes seek to acquire a controlling interest in publicly traded companies through stock purchases.
Example: KKR

Family office

They are private wealth management advisory firms that serve ultra-high-net-worth (UHNW) investors.
Example: Talis Capital

Government and non-profit

Advisor

It refers to investment banks and financial advisory firms that invest into startups.

Investment rounds types


GRANT

It is a financial award given by governments, international institutions, universities etc. It is like a gift as the grantmaker won’t receive equity or payment back. For example, the European Innovation Council (EIC) has given grants to many startups.

ANGEL

When only angel investors made the investment

Disclaimer: The following ranges are used to standardize rounds based on the funding amount. This approach is adopted in custom reports. As a result, the company’s self-reported round type could differ from the one entered using this standardization.

SEED

For €1-4M deals, when the round happened 0-2 years after the company’s foundation

SERIES A

For €4-15M deals

SERIES B

For €15-40M deals

SERIES C

For €40-100M deals

Megarounds

For €100-250M deals

Megaround+

For €250M+ deals

EARLY VC

When the round type is not mentioned and the amount is between 2 and 20 million

LATE VC

Rounds type not mentioned after Series A,B…or Round happening 5 years after launch date

GROWTH EQUITY

A $100M+ investment in a fast growing company mostly a mix of primary+secondary. the investor is a private equity, growth equity, VC and/or corporate. Not every $100M+ round is GE round. It could be self-reported as Series A,B,C+ etc.

ACQUISITION

Majority stake (50-100%), acquired, controlling stake, (acquisition amount = valuation if no mention of stake %). Generally, we add the transaction when the acquisition is announced. If it does not go through, we remove it. Once it’s finalized we can update the transaction date.

BUYOUT

30-100% Acquisition by Private Equity firms, BUYOUT mentioned

MERGER

Is a fusion of two companies into one new legal entity agreed on generally equal terms. For example, Daum Communications and Kakao Inc. merged in 2014. Once added, a merger transaction will be displayed on both companies’ profiles.

DEBT

It is defined as money borrowed by one party to another, with the arrangement to be paid back at a later date, usually with interest. Startups & Scaleups choose to opt for this option as it might be cheaper than issuing stock in certain industries (real estate, manufacturing, for example).

CONVERTIBLE

Convertible notes, convertible loans

LENDING CAPITAL

Working capital for platforms providing lendings and mortgages. These startups require a wide amount of working capital to lend which is often provided by banking partners (ex: LendInvest, Duologi)

MEDIA FOR EQUITY

When a media group provides a communication/advertising campaign in exchange for shares in the startup

PRIVATE PLACEMENT

Add when the private placement type is explicitly mentioned and the company is public. This round type is more common in the US. It has a specific meaning, and is never public money: a publicly listed company sells shares privately (not via stock market) to hand-picked individuals (usually family offices, individuals, institutional investors, not government).
Private placement is almost always present in the case of SPACs IPOs (Example).

ICO

More info can be found here

IPO

More info can be found here

POST IPO EQUITY

A post IPO equity round takes place when firms invest in a company after the company has already gone public.

POST IPO DEBT

A post IPO debt round is a transaction when corporates loan a company money after the company has already gone public. Similar to debt, a company promises to repay the principal as well as added interest on the debt.

POST IPO CONVERTIBLE

A post IPO convertible round takes place when a company receives a convertible round after the company has already gone public.

SECONDARY

0-20% ownership by investing through buying shares from existing investors

SPAC IPO

This round represents the merger between the SPAC vehicle and the company going public and the company public listing. It is therefore implemented as an IPO but with “investor” the SPAC company. (Example).

Note: The ownership percentages (e.g Secondary, Buyout) are indicative.

SPINOUT

Spinouts are startups where universities have equity and/or royalty/licensing deals. The terms Spinout and Spin-off have the same meaning. We use the term Spinout. We count a startup as Spinout if there’s a reliable source, like a university site, the company LinkedIn profile, trusted news source, etc. mentioning it’s a “spin-off” / “spinout” or mentioning that the company was created using the technology developed at a University/Research Center. Our definition of Spinout does not cover corporate spinouts (companies that have spun out of large corporates like Samsung, Toyota, etc.). Startups that do not follow this condition, should not be counted as Spinouts. For example, the source mentioning that the company was founded by the Oxford University alumni is not enough to count the startup as a Spinout. Similarly, the source mentioning that the company is a University startup or a startup incubated at the University, is not enough to count this startup as a Spinout.


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