Crunch It
This is the standard equity percentage Y Combinator takes in exchange for its program and investment.
What is 7%?
This principle, central to venture investing, holds that a small number of companies in any portfolio will generate the vast majority of returns - meaning one outlier must return the entire fund.
What is the power law?
This document, popularized by Y Combinator, lets a startup raise money from an investor today with equity issued later at the next priced round.
What is a SAFE?
This company originally called its product "Tote," was rejected by 7 VCs before closing its seed round, and is now one of the most visited websites in the world.
What is Pinterest?
This chemical element, extracted primarily from brine and hard rock mines in South America, is the key active ingredient in the batteries powering most EVs today.
What is lithium?
Benchmark's legendary 1997 eBay investment of $6.7M was worth this amount at IPO just one year later - one of the fastest large returns in venture history.
What is $400 million?
This term describes the uninvested capital a VC fund has available to deploy - and in 2023 hit a record high globally as investors slowed deployment during the market correction.
What is dry powder?
A startup is negotiating its Series A and the lead investor insists on a clause allowing them to maintain their ownership percentage in future rounds. What is this right called?
What is pro-rata rights?
Peter Thiel wrote a $500K angel check into this company in 2004, receiving 10.2% in return. It is now one of the most valuable companies in human history.
What is Facebook?
This is the term for the rate at which a battery degrades over charge cycles, measured as a percentage of original capacity - a critical spec for EV manufacturers and grid storage operators alike.
What is capacity fade or degradation rate?
A VC fund has $200M in committed capital and charges 2% management fees annually for 10 years. How much capital is actually available to invest after fees?
What is $160M?
This term describes the characteristic shape of VC fund returns over time - negative in early years as fees and losses accumulate, then curving sharply upward as winners are realized.
What is the J-curve?
This ratio measures the total value of a fund to paid-in capital, including both unrealized and realized value.
What is TVPI?
This geothermal energy company was founded in Houston in 2017, and by 2026 had pulled off what bankers called the largest primary clean energy public equity deal of all time.
What is Fervo Energy?
Geothermal energy companies like Fervo drill into the earth to access heat. This is the term for the temperature gradient that describes how much the earth's temperature increases per unit of depth - the core metric that determines a site's energy potential.
What is the geothermal gradient?
The IRA passed in 2022 allocated approximately this amount toward clean energy investment - the largest climate legislation in US history
What is $369 billion?
When a prominent VC fund declines to participate in a portfolio company's next round, this term describes the negative signal it sends to outside investors.
What is signaling risk?
This right gives a VC first opportunity to invest in a startup's next financing round before the company can approach outside investors.
What is a right of first refusal or ROFR?
This solar panel manufacturer raised $535M including a $528M DOE loan guarantee, became a symbol of government-backed cleantech investment, and filed for bankruptcy in 2011 after being undercut by cheap Chinese imports.
What is Solyndra?
This electrochemical process, used in green hydrogen production, splits water into hydrogen and oxygen using electricity.
What is electrolysis?
A $50M seed fund deploys into 25 companies with equal $2M checks. One company returns 50x. The rest return nothing. What is the fund's MOIC?
What is 2x?
This Reid Hoffman-coined strategy describes prioritizing speed and scale over efficiency — accepting chaos and losses to dominate a market before competitors can react. It defined the 2010s growth playbook and fell out of favor after the 2022 correction.
What is blitzscaling?
This agreement restricts founders and early employees from selling shares for a set period after an IPO.
What is a lockup agreement?
This company began as an internal tool at a gaming startup called Glitch, was spun out when the game failed, became one of the most valuable SaaS companies ever built.
What is Slack?
Grid-scale battery storage systems lose a percentage of energy during each charge-discharge cycle. This term describes the ratio of energy output to energy input in a storage system - and for lithium-ion grid storage it typically runs between 85-95%.
What is round-trip efficiency?