Startup words, jargon and slang, business english

Issue of shares in startups 

When a startup issues shares, it ‘creates’ additional shares to give to an investor an exchange for their financial investment in the company. Since these shares are being newly created, they are an addition to the number of initial shares.

For that, the number of shares each previous shareholder possessed remains the same, while the percentage they own changes. This is called dilution.

Example of how dilution works

Dilution represented with drawings

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