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When does a startup stop being a startup? It’s a harder question than it sounds – tech companies have discovered that words have power. Let’s explore! — Anne

Start-ups versus scale-ups

“We’re not a startup, we’re a scale-up,” CMO Cristina Marcos told me of her employer, interactive content creation platform Genially. It was actually one of the first things she said when we met in person earlier this week, and her emphasis really caught my attention.

On the one hand, it seems reasonable to say that a company like Genially, which has millions of users and raised over $26 million in funding, is no longer a startup. On the other hand, “startup” is such a buzzword that it’s interesting to see companies moving away from it.

It should be noted that “scale-up” is Genially’s preferred term rather than “startup”. Joe Haslam, a professor at IE Business School in Madrid, has argued for nearly a decade that “scaling is the new startup.” But even he concedes that the term “scale-up” hasn’t taken off as much as he expected.