Venture capital is a form of private equity financing that provides funding to early-stage companies with high growth potential. It plays an important role in the startup ecosystem, helping to bring new products, services, and technologies to market. Venture capitalists are known for their ability to identify promising startups and provide them with the resources they need to grow and succeed. However, not everyone is aware of the interesting trivia and facts surrounding the venture capital industry. Here are a few examples of venture capital trivia questions that might test your knowledge:
- Who is considered the father of modern venture capital?
- What is the average size of a first-time venture capital fund?
- What is the typical ownership stake for a venture capital firm in a portfolio company?
- What is the typical duration of a venture capital investment?
- What is the name of the most famous venture capital firm?
These are just a few examples of the many fascinating facts and trivia related to the venture capital industry. Whether you're an entrepreneur looking to raise capital or just someone who is curious about how startups get funding, these questions can be a fun and interesting way to learn more about the venture capital industry.
120 Venture Capital Trivia Questions Ranked From Easiest to Hardest (Updated for 2024)
- A “G” venture capital company, founded in 2006 in NYC, that has investments in Bird, Bumble, Venmo, and others, is ______croft. Fill in the one word blank, one spelling of the color mix of black and white, as well as the title of a 2011 Liam Neeson movie about fighting off wolves.
Answer: Greycroft
- Actor Leonardo DiCaprio is also a venture capitalist who was an early investor in what company whose plant-based products compete directly with brands like Impossible Burger?
Answer: Beyond Meat
- While researching cruddy point-of-sale systems, Penn roommates Andrew Kortina and Iqram Magdon-Ismail created what V-word mobile payment service?
Answer: Venmo
- It’s rare for a privately held startup to make it big and be worth more than $1 billion USD. What magical name did Aileen Lee give to companies that have achieved this feat?
Answer: Unicorns
- Sound Ventures, a fund that has invested in Bird Scooters, is co-owned by what actor who starred on "That '70s Show" and is married to Mila Kunis?
Answer: Ashton Kutcher
- A venture capital podcast hosted by Harry Stebbings is “The ______ Minute VC.” Fill in the one word “T” blank, also James Garfield’s numerical value as US president.
Answer: The Twenty Minute VC
- Which term is used to describe how fast your company is spending money to cover expenses and makes it sounds like you’re setting the cash on fire?
Answer: Burn Rate
- Which B-word describes the testing you do close to the launch of your product to make double-sure it’ll work in the real world with end-users?
Answer: Beta
- Compared to that of Wall Street and the stock market, K Street and political lobbying, Madison Avenue for the advertising industry is for venture capitalism which road running through Palo Alto, Menlo Park, and Woodside?
Answer: Sand Hill Road
- In the programming world, the acronym SaaS stands for "software as a" WHAT?
Answer: service
- A ______ partner (LP) in your company doesn’t have voting rights and is not involved in the day-to-day side of the business’s operations. They’re also not liable for the full amount of your company’s debt (they’re only on the hook for however much they’ve invested).
Answer: Limited
- Casa Verde is a venture capital firm that focuses specifically on the cannabis industry, founded by what rapper who performed at the 2022 Super Bowl halftime show?
Answer: Snoop Dogg
- Through the first 10 seasons of Shark Tank, what Dallas Mavericks owner and prominent venture capitalist had made the highest number of deals on the show, totaling 151 deals?
Answer: Mark Cuban
- Actress Priyanka Chopra Jonas's ventures have included a large investment in what dating app that requires women to make the first move in an opposite-sex match?
Answer: Bumble
- Which directional term applies to a funding round where a startup’s value per share is lower than it used to be?
Answer: Down
- Identified was APRN on the New York Stock Exchange, Bessemer Venture Partners was one of the first three venture capitalists firms to give over $3 million to what company that started with founders Matt Salzberg, Ilia Papas, and Matt Wadiak making and sending meal prep boxes to customers in 2012?
Answer: Blue Apron
- Gritt.io is a free searchable database of which kind of (heavenly) investor?
Answer: Angel
- The co-author of the first widely used web browser (Mosaic) is also the co-founder of Netscape, another popular web browser. However, this person is arguably more famous as a venture capitalist due to his career at what firm?
Answer: Andreessen Horowitz
- One of the up-and-coming global trends in VC is environmental, ______, and corporate governance (ESCG), in which a company’s impact on the environment and people (as well as its transparency about these effects) is considered by investors.
Answer: Social
- An important ratio that helps home buyers determine how much house they can afford, DTI stands for what, in real-estate parlance?
Answer: Debt to Income
- What fictional character can be said to be a venture capitalist, since he invested in a shrimping boat to found a successful shrimp company named after himself and his late comrade Benjamin "Bubba" Blue?
Answer: Forrest Gump
- In startup-speak, the abbreviation FMA, meaning the competitive edge a company gets from being the first to market with a product, stands for "first mover" WHAT?
Answer: advantage
- A European venture capital firm, founded in 1996 by Neil and David Rimer with dual headquarters in San Francisco and London, that invests in technology enable companies, is ______ Ventures. Fill in the one word blank, also the term for a list of names at the back of a book, indicating on what pages they occur.
Answer: Index Ventures
- What venture capital firm, founded in Menlo Park, CA, USA in 2009 by Marc “A” and Ben “H”, invests in both start-ups and companies with established growth? In 2021 they announced intentions to invest in videogame startups.
Answer: Andreessen Horowitz
- What German-born venture capitalist and PayPal cofounder is a coauthor of the 2014 book "Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future?"
Answer: Peter Thiel
- Not related to ask.com, Thazhmon and Sherwin Gandhi founded a Fintech company that shares what J-name with a P.G. Wodehouse butler character?
Answer: Jeeves
- Listed by Forbes Magazine as one of the 100 largest companies in the world, Banco Santander is the largest bank in which country?
Answer: Spain
- Your company’s ARRG ratio might sound like a Charlie Brown-esque cry of frustration, but it’s actually an acronym for Average ______ Revenue/Growth Rate.
Answer: Recurring
- Which type of buyout occurs when you rack up a lot of debt (for example, in loans) when you take over a company with the intent to use its assets as collateral and use your future earnings to pay back what you owe? (Hint: It’s called “LBO” for short)
Answer: Leveraged
- Founded in 2012 and launched two years later, what is the name of the San Mateo, California-based data company that was named because of the shared love for winter sports that both founders have?
Answer: Snowflake
- Accel, a venture capital firm specializing in startups at early levels of development, has offices in Palo Alto and what other California city, home of the NFL’s 49ers team?
Answer: San Francisco
- AlphaQ, a billion dollar international venture capital firm, is based out of what German city?
Answer: Berlin, Germany
- An American company, founded by Olivier Pomel in 2010, that monitors cloud-scale applications through a SaaS-based data analytics platform, is DataD______. Fill in the one word blank, an animal seen in their purple logo playfully holding a chart.
Answer: Dog
- What mythical term was first popularized in 2013 by venture capitalist Aileen Lee to describe a startup with a market valuation of more than $1 billion?
Answer: Unicorn
- Thirty Five Ventures is a capital firm co-founded by what NBA star, who wore number 35 from the start of his career until he joined the Brooklyn Nets in 2020?
Answer: Kevin Durant
- Featuring a light-blue-and-white cover design, "Start-Up Nation" is a 2009 book about the economic miracle of technological development and entrepreneurial economy of what Middle Eastern country?
Answer: Israel
- Internet mogul Richard Barton founded the online travel companyExpedia, the employment search engine and company review website Glassdoor, and what internet-based real estate company?
Answer: Zillow
- What NYC-based fitness technology company raised around $75 million in its approximately four years in business before being acquired by Lululemon for $500 million in 2020?
Answer: Mirror
- What tech startup, which was founded in 2015 and describes itself as "Video Messaging for Work", takes its name from a device used to weave cloth?
Answer: Loom
- Sequoia and Accel are both financial firms that are considered hallmark members of what sub-class of private equity investing?
Answer: Venture Capital
- No, it’s not the Ark Indiana Jones was seeking. Which C-term refers to a key protective clause in a VC agreement?
Answer: Covenant
- Jack Dorsey is most known for co-founding Twitter, but he is also CEO of another tech company. What is the name of this other company most well-known for credit card readers?
Answer: Block
- In 2019, CB Insights and the New York Times partnered to rank the Top 20 Venture Capitalists. In first place was Neil Shen, a former co-founder of Chinese travel company Ctrip.com. Shen was a founding partner of the China-based office of what famed venture firm?
Answer: Sequoia
- In October 2020, a San Francisco-based company named Whisper raised $35 million in Series B funding. Coincidentally, Quiet Ventures led the fundraising round for Whisper and the company is known as a manufacturer of what piece of medical technology?
Answer: Hearing aids
- Getting venture capitalist funding for your startup is a bit of an “alphabet soup,” as each series round is named with which linguistic symbol?
Answer: Letter
- They’re similar, but venture capital and which type of equity have some key differences (for example, the latter will buy up a successful company while the former is more interested in “getting in on the ground floor” with a startup)?
Answer: Private
- There is a notary-focused Boston startup that raised $35 million in Series C funding in July 2020. Unsurprisingly, what is the company's name?
Answer: Notarize
- Snore! What Elon Musk-founded tunneling firm raised $118 million in venture capital funding in April 2018?
Answer: The Boring Company
- In the world of venture capital, a company that is funded by an entrepreneur's personal resources or revenue from the company is said to be what?
Answer: Bootstrapped
- In April 2020, it was announced that the prominent venture capitalist Bill Gurley was stepping back from his full-time role at what venture capital firm after more than 20 years with the company including investments in Uber, GrubHub, OpenTable, and Zillow?
Answer: Benchmark
- Which “M” term describes a middle-risk financing option where the person lending can turn the debt into equity in the company they’re funding if the borrower defaults? (Hint: The word also means an in-between floor between two main floors in a building).
Answer: Mezzanine
- What kind of investor provides capital for a start-up business, in exchange or ownership equity? They probably get their incredibly positive name from taking a risky investment at an early stage.
Answer: Angel Investor
- Marc Lore sold Diapers.com to Amazon and later founded a new ecommerce company with Mike Hanrahan and Nate Faust. These three men raised over $800 million in venture capital before their July 2015 launch. Thirteen months later, their company was a subsidiary of Walmart. What was their company?
Answer: Jet.com
- Counting Peter Thiel among its partners, what alliteratively named San Francisco-based venture capital firm lists Facebook, Palantir, Airbnb, and SpaceX among its portfolio companies?
Answer: Founders Fund
- What is the "techy" name of the first podcast from Gimlet Media hosted by Alex Blumberg and Lisa Chow which was meta enough to follow the founding and growth of Gimlet Media itself?
Answer: StartUp
- What Boston-based private equity investment firm was co-founded by former Massachusetts governor and current Utah Senator Mitt Romney?
Answer: Bain Capital
- What app for guided meditations was founded in 2012 by Michael Acton Smith and Alex Tew? It hopes to instill an inner sense of peace.
Answer: Calm
- The San Francisco-based company Ethos was valued at a valuation of more than $2 billion in May 2021 after spending its existence focusing on what common type of insurance product?
Answer: Life insurance
- What disgraced startup was formerly valued at $9 billion dollars before a controversy regarding its technology began brewing in 2015, ultimately culminating in 2018 charges of "massive fraud" by the CEO?
Answer: Theranos
- After an aborted merger attempt with Uber, the food delivery company Grubhub agreed in June 2020 to be acquired by what other delivery-focused software company?
Answer: Just Eat Takeaway.com
- 83north does duty as the Israel branch of what old-school, Cambridge-born V.C. firm?
Answer: Greylock Partners
- If you want to make a business idea come to life, first you need to have an MVP—a very basic, but functional, version of your product that you can test out with potential investors and buyers. Not quite your “Most Valuable Player,” but what does MVP stand for?
Answer: Minimum Viable Product
- If B2B means “business-to-business” (when businesses interact with each other) it makes sense that B2C means business-to-_____ (when businesses interact with end-users or customers).
Answer: Consumer
- Also called a stock launch, a company’s IPO is its initial public ______ of public shares to potential investors.
Answer: Offering
- Capital ______ (CAPEX) refers to how much money a company has to shell out to improve their business—for example, through buying or updating the equipment they use to make their product.
Answer: Expenditure
- Not just a name to call your mother by, MOM is also an acronym you’d want to know if you were comparing growth rates for September to August. The “O” is over and the Ms sandwiched on either side are which word repeated?
Answer: Month
- Which VC firm based in Menlo Park shares a name with a familiar California tree and has invested in companies like DoorDash, Zoom, Apple, and 23andMe?
Answer: Sequoia Capital
- In 2022, which Israeli-based medtech startup got $62 million in Series B funding from Pitango Venture Capital to expand consumer access to its breathalyzer-style metabolism tracking device?
Answer: Lumen
- Which VC firm founded by Mike Maples Jr. and Ann Miura-Ko has a name that makes it sound like it can open up a steady stream of support and help you make some big waves?
Answer: Floodgate
- Which VC firm founded in 2012 has a froggy name, believes “it takes money to change money,” and has invested in companies like Affirm, Credit Karma, Coinbase, and Wealthfront?
Answer: Ribbit Capital
- Which VC firm has been putting “people first” since it was founded in 1969 by two (unrelated) guys named Davis, backing startups like Atari, ServiceMax, and Lyft?
Answer: Mayfield Fund
- What is the name of the fintech company, which was founded by Max Levchin and went public on the New York Stock Exchange in 2021, that allows users to apply for a small loan when purchasing a variety of items at its partner stores?
Answer: Affirm
- The common financial index NASDAQ stands for National Association of Securities Dealers Automated WHAT?
Answer: quotations
- In crypto, buy the ______ (BTD) is slang for purchasing at a low price (usually just after a peak) with the assumption that the value will go up again.
Answer: Dip
- Born in Bulgaria before attending Thomas Jefferson High School in Virginia and Stanford University in California, Vlad Tenev founded defunct trading company Celeris and then software company Chronos Research before eventually founding what still-functioning company in 2013?
Answer: Robinhood
- In January 2020, global payments company Visa acquired a financial technology startup for a price of more than $5 billion. The company provides the "plumbing" for linking bank accounts to payment apps so transfers can be easily sent over Wi-Fi or cellular networks. The company shares its name with a clothing pattern. What is the company?
Answer: Plaid
- A Boulder, Colorado-based company named The Pro's Closet raised $12 million in funding in September 2020. The company is a marketplace for selling what type of high-end sports equipment?
Answer: Bicycles
- Vinod Khosla, a billionaire and founder of an eponymous venture capital firm, is also a cofounder of what company that created the Java programming language?
Answer: Sun Microsystems
- What “H” Seattle company uses caller data to help identify incoming calls and block unwanted ones? Its four-letter name sounds like an informal greeting.
Answer: Hiya
- What “D” American venture capitalist at Kleiner Perkins in Menlo Park, CA, also wrote books on the subject, including “Measure What Matters” and “Professional Services Marketing?”
Answer: John Doerr
- Which term applies to a company that’s in the growth or direction phase, has at least 10 employees, and has had an annualized return of at least 20% over the last 3 years?
Answer: Scaleup
- What "buggy" database company raised $160 million in early 2021? The company claims to combine "the benefits of familiar, relational SQL" with the "easy scale and global reach" of NoSQL.
Answer: Cockroach Labs
- What term is used to describe a type of investment funding that’s only used to fund other funds (often hedge or mutual)?
Answer: Fund of Funds
- What venture capital fund, founded in 2007 and named for the pacific northwest US state it’s located in, invests in customer.io, Perfect Company, and GlobeSherpa, among many others?
Answer: Oregon Venture Fund
- What competing real estate website with a seltzer-sounding name did Zillow buy in 2015 for $2.5bn in stock?
Answer: Trulia
- What is the name of the security company founded in 2006 by two Harvard Business School students who couldn't find a security company designed to help renters? The couple was interested in the field after multiple friends in Cambridge had experienced break-ins. By 2014, the company has raised more than $50 million in venture capital.
Answer: Simplisafe
- With a soaring valuation that reached more than $40 billion in the first half of 2021, what is the name of the Swedish fintech company that primarily features post-purchase payments (i.e. "buy now, pay later") and is headquartered in Stockholm?
Answer: Klarna
- It is commonly said that early investments in startups come from what are known as "The Three Fs" - Friends, Family, and what third F word?
Answer: Fools
- What is the name of the 2012-founded San Francisco-based company that uses a spreadsheet-database hybrid in which features of a database are applied to a spreadsheet? Founded by Howie Liu, Andrew Ofstad, and Emmett Nicholas, the company widely shares its API for connecting other online services and has raised more than $300 million in funding (as of early 2021).
Answer: Airtable
- What is the name of the mysterious and unknown person who designed and created the original implementation protocol for Bitcoin? We'll accept either the first or last name.
Answer: Satoshi Nakamoto
- The cybersecurity startup Island received $11 million in funding from what Bosack and Lerner-founded San Jose tech giant that pioneered the LAN?
Answer: Cisco Systems
- What two-word geographic term saw its first ever publication in print in 1971 when journalist Don Hoefler began publishing a series of articles entitled "______ ______, USA" in Electronic News newspaper?
Answer: Silicon Valley
- A pun on the French phrase meaning "ready to wear," what fashion website did venture capitalist Julie Massenet found in 2000, with the idea that users could look at a magazine-style photo and buy the items in the look?
Answer: Net-a-Porter
- Deeper Insights, Five AI, and Beyond Analysis are some of the top AI companies in what international city?
Answer: London
- Preceding the burst of scooter sharing companies in the United States, LatAm, and Europe was a wave of Chinese-based dockless bikeshare companies in ~2017. Most prominent of these brightly colored companies were Mobike's orange bikes and what other company's yellow bikes?
Answer: Ofo
- Crowberry Capital is the largest Venture Capital fund in what Scandinavian country, with its all female leadership?
Answer: Iceland
- Which term describes the cycle of proposals and pitches to venture capitalists and is influenced by the state of the economy?
Answer: Deal-Flow
- What venture-backed company focused on a singular kitchen device called it quits in 2017 largely due to the fallout stemming from a critical and, frankly, embarrassing revelation regarding its product's uselessness.
Answer: Juicero
- In 2018, startup "unicorn" Airbnb redesigned their sites to feature a custom-designed font named for what breakfast staple that played a role in the company's initial founding?
Answer: Cereal
- With a valuation north of $1 billion and more than $700 million raised in venture capital, what is the four-letter company that offers business credit cards to technology companies and brands itself as "the financial OS for the next generation of business"?
Answer: Brex
- Policybazaar and ZhongAn Insurance are both technology-based insurance companies that have received large amounts of funding through the Vision Fund which is one of the world's largest venture capital funds and is associated with what Japanese telecom giant?
Answer: SoftBank
- In 2008, which famous Silicon Valley venture capital firm launched its “iFund” specifically to seed iPhone, iPad, and iPod ideas?
Answer: Kleiner Perkins
- What notorious Boston sports fan, formerly of ESPN, sold his most recent venture to Spotify in early 2020 to bolster their podcast business?
Answer: Bill Simmons
- Name one of the two online payments companies founded in the late 1990s that eventually merged and became known as PayPal.
Answer: Confinity and X.com
- What is the "sunny" parent company of InvestorInfo, PitchBook, and ByAllAccounts?
Answer: Morningstar
- What is the name of the NYC-based e-commerce fraud-prevention FinTech founded by Eido Gal and Assaf Feldman in 2013 that has raised more than $200 million in venture funding as of April 2021?
Answer: Riskified
- In September 2020, the food delivery company Rappi raised an additional $150 million to further fund its expansion in what continent?
Answer: South America
- What is the alliteratively-named San Francisco-based technology company that offers pay-per-mile car insurance? The company was founded in 2011 and went public in February 2021.
Answer: Metromile
- In the U.S., platforms like Onevest are a great way for startups to get investors during which early-stage series of funding?
Answer: A
- During the COVID-19 pandemic, Amazon was supplied with boxes thanks to the work of what A.I.-integrated, Jason Traff-founded Austin logistics startup with a very on-the-nose name?
Answer: Shipwell
- What is the five-letter name of the London-based company that provides software for virtual events and raised *three* rounds of venture capital in 2020 totaling more than $170 million? The company grew from 5,000 to over 3 million users during the year.
Answer: Hopin
- What website design and implementation tool was founded by Bryant Chou, Sergie Magdalin, and Vlad Magdalin in 2012 and did not raise a series A fundraising round until 2019? However, when they raised that round of funding, it was a cash injection of more than $70 million.
Answer: Webflow
- Ellen Ma made 2022’s Forbe’s 30 under 30 list for being the Managing Director of which VC firm founded by Wei Guo in 2016 and has invested in ventures like Substack, Instacart, and Lime?
Answer: Uphonest Capital
- "Beat Faster, Fly Further" is the apt slogan of what avian-named venture cap firm with a portfolio including Deliveroo, Kraken, and Peak Games?
Answer: Hummingbird
- What is the name of the the Boston-based biotech startup making synthetically producing scents and flavors from microbugs? The company shares its name with a type of tree.
Answer: Ginkgo Bioworks
- Name the entrepreneur who initially started with a networking group for women named SoGal and now runs the largest female-led millennial venture capital firm. Both her first name and last name are also common nouns in English.
Answer: Pocket Sun
- Which app that was founded by Sanjay Jha and Shanti Mohan in 2013 is India’s most popular platform for startups looking to get investors?
Answer: LetsVenture
- Which American unicorn tech startup was brought to you by the same folks who created Apache Spark and is a cloud data platform (or “lakehouse,” as it's marketed)?
Answer: Databricks
- What is the name of the Egypt-based software company that primarily offers a bug reporting tool with a "Shake to Send" feature? The company integrates with many other tools thought its SDK and raised $5 million in a Series A led by Accel in 2020.
Answer: Instabug
- What is the name of the NYC-based fintech company that focuses on reducing clients spend along with issuing a namesake corporate credit card? The company was in the news in April 2021 after raising back-to-back rounds that raised the young four-letter firm at more than one billion dollars.
Answer: Ramp
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About the Author
Eli Robinson is the Chief Trivia Officer at Water Cooler Trivia. He was once in a Bruce Springsteen cover band called F Street Band.