Venture Capital Lost Its Shared Vocabulary

I had a conversation recently with a super talented CXO that I’d love to find a role in our portfolio. I found myself describing a handful of our companies at various stages and realized metrics like $ raised, funds, even revenue don’t mean much anymore. Its hard to describe a company’s stage in shorthand.

There used to be a shared vocabulary. “Series A, 20 people, $2M ARR” and we both knew roughly what we were talking about. The risk profile. What saying yes meant for your career. Now that same sentence could mean five completely different things.

Is it SaaS or AI-native? ARR, CARR, or GMV? 5 people doing the work of 50, or 50 people who should be 5? Remote or in-person? Did they raise a pre-seed before this, or is this actually first money? Is the valuation a signal of momentum or just a number from a different market moment?

Some of what I’m seeing doesn’t feel like venture at all. Companies with long operating histories, predictable revenue, stable teams but maybe more PE in nature than startup. Others look like seeds but are really Series Bs by any honest measure of maturity. The labels have drifted so far from the underlying reality, which can be a good thing.

And I’m not sure the VC brand on the cap table helps the way it used to. There are so many funds, so many ways to get institutional capital now, that “backed by X” carries less signal than it once did. Was it a big check or small check? A scout or a partner? When did they invest?

What I tell people now: go meet the team. Understand the real revenue, the product, the people. Each company needs its own story now. The shorthand is largely useless.