Glossary
Technology leadership terms, explained.
Clear definitions of 25+ terms that founders and executives encounter when building technology teams and products.
- AIF Category II
- The SEBI Alternative Investment Fund category covering private equity and venture funds that do not employ leverage other than for day-to-day operations. Cat II funds must name a key investment team, hold the relevant NISM certification, and report to SEBI and investors on an audited basis. Learn more →
- Alternative Investment Fund (AIF)
- A privately pooled investment vehicle registered with a securities regulator. In India, SEBI recognises three categories: Category I (venture, SME, social impact), Category II (private equity and debt funds, no leverage beyond operational needs), and Category III (hedge-style strategies). Registration brings named key investment personnel, certification requirements, and audited reporting. Learn more →
- API Strategy
- A plan for designing, building, and managing application programming interfaces (APIs) to enable integration between systems, support third-party developers, and create new revenue channels. A strong API strategy aligns technical design with business goals.
- Architecture Review
- A structured evaluation of a software system's technical design, including infrastructure, data flow, security, and scalability. Architecture reviews identify risks, technical debt, and opportunities to improve performance before they become costly problems.
- Build vs Buy
- The decision framework for determining whether to develop a software capability in-house or purchase an existing solution. The right choice depends on competitive differentiation, total cost of ownership, time-to-market, and long-term maintainability. Learn more →
- Carried Interest
- The share of a fund's profits paid to the fund manager, typically 20% above an agreed hurdle rate. Carry aligns the manager with investors because it pays only after limited partners have received their capital and preferred return.
- CI/CD Pipeline
- Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery — an automated workflow that builds, tests, and deploys code changes. CI/CD pipelines reduce manual errors, accelerate release cycles, and give engineering teams confidence to ship frequently. Learn more →
- Cloud Migration
- The process of moving applications, data, and infrastructure from on-premises servers to cloud platforms such as AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud. Successful cloud migrations improve scalability and reduce operational overhead when planned with a clear strategy.
- Consolidated Reporting
- A single view of assets across every entity, custodian, bank, and manager a family or fund uses. The hardest technical problem most family offices face — data arrives in different formats on different schedules, and reporting cycles commonly run up to 21 days from data pull to presentation. Learn more →
- CTO as a Service
- An engagement model where a company hires an external technology leader on a flexible, ongoing basis to fulfill the responsibilities of a Chief Technology Officer. Often used interchangeably with fractional CTO, though it can also refer to advisory-only arrangements. Learn more →
- CTO-in-Residence
- A senior technologist attached to a venture fund rather than to one company, supporting technical diligence on prospective deals and advising portfolio companies whose founding teams lack deep engineering leadership. Distinct from the fund's own internal CTO, who typically owns the fund's data and operations stack. Learn more →
- DevOps
- A set of practices that combines software development and IT operations to shorten the development lifecycle and deliver high-quality software continuously. DevOps emphasizes automation, monitoring, and collaboration between engineering and infrastructure teams.
- Digital Transformation
- The strategic adoption of digital technologies to fundamentally change how a business operates and delivers value to customers. It goes beyond adding new tools — it requires rethinking processes, culture, and business models. Learn more →
- Engineering Team Scaling
- The process of growing an engineering organization while maintaining code quality, team culture, and delivery velocity. Effective scaling involves hiring strategy, onboarding processes, team structure design, and establishing engineering standards.
- Exit Readiness
- Preparing a company's technology and engineering organisation to survive diligence on the next transaction. Typically begins 12–18 months before an expected exit: clearing technical debt that would surface in a buyer's review, producing defensible architecture and security documentation, and making sure the team can answer for the asset. Learn more →
- Family Office
- A private organisation managing the financial and administrative affairs of a wealthy family — investments, tax, legal, succession, philanthropy, and increasingly technology. Teams are small, often fewer than five people, which concentrates both institutional knowledge and operational risk. Learn more →
- Family Office CTO
- The person accountable for the technology that holds a family's financial life: consolidated multi-entity reporting, document and data security, custodian and manager data aggregation, platform selection, and continuity when a key person leaves. Most family offices below roughly $500M AUM need this fractionally rather than as a full-time hire. Learn more →
- Fractional CPO
- A part-time or contract Chief Product Officer who provides senior product leadership to companies that need strategic product direction without the cost of a full-time executive. A fractional CPO owns product vision, roadmap prioritization, and go-to-market alignment. Learn more →
- Fractional CTO
- A part-time or contract Chief Technology Officer who provides senior technical leadership to companies on a flexible basis. A fractional CTO typically owns technology strategy, architecture decisions, engineering hiring, and technical due diligence — without the full-time salary and equity commitment. Learn more →
- General Partner (GP)
- The entity that manages a fund, sources and executes investments, and carries liability for the fund's operations. GPs earn a management fee plus carried interest, and are the counterparty a portfolio company's board deals with.
- HIPAA Compliance
- Adherence to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which sets standards for protecting sensitive patient health information. Software handling protected health information (PHI) must implement specific technical, physical, and administrative safeguards. Learn more →
- Interim CTO
- A temporary Chief Technology Officer brought in to fill a leadership gap, typically full-time for a defined period. Unlike a fractional CTO who works part-time across multiple clients, an interim CTO is fully dedicated to one company during a transition or crisis.
- Legacy Modernization
- The process of updating or replacing outdated software systems with modern technologies and architectures. Legacy modernization reduces maintenance costs, improves performance, and enables teams to build new features faster.
- Limited Partner (LP)
- An investor in a fund who provides capital but takes no part in management and whose liability is capped at their commitment. Pension funds, endowments, insurers, and family offices are typical LPs. LP reporting obligations are a large part of why portfolio company technology work carries documentation requirements.
- Microservices Architecture
- A software design approach where an application is built as a collection of small, independently deployable services, each responsible for a specific business capability. Microservices enable teams to develop, deploy, and scale components independently.
- Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
- The simplest version of a product that can be released to validate a core hypothesis with real users. An MVP is not a half-built product — it is a deliberately scoped release designed to maximize learning with minimum investment.
- Multi-Family Office
- A firm serving several unrelated families from shared infrastructure. The technology problem differs from a single-family office: data segregation and per-family access control matter more than bespoke fit, and the platform has to support many reporting conventions at once. Learn more →
- Operating Partner
- A senior operator inside a private equity or venture firm who works with portfolio companies on execution rather than on transactions. Operating partners commission technical diligence, own value-creation plans, and are usually the buyer for fractional CTO engagements at portfolio companies. Learn more →
- Portfolio Company (Portco)
- A company owned by a private equity or venture fund. Portcos carry reporting obligations to the sponsor and operate against a defined hold period, which changes how technology decisions get justified — every roadmap item is measured against the value-creation plan and the exit date. Learn more →
- Pre-Seed / Seed Stage
- The earliest phases of startup funding, where founders raise capital to validate their idea, build an initial product, and demonstrate early traction. Technology decisions made at this stage — stack choices, architecture, and hiring — have outsized long-term impact.
- Product Roadmap
- A strategic document that outlines the vision, direction, and priorities for a product over time. A good roadmap communicates what will be built, why it matters, and how it connects to business objectives — without over-committing to exact timelines.
- Product-Market Fit
- The point at which a product satisfies a strong market demand, evidenced by organic growth, high retention, and consistent willingness to pay. Reaching product-market fit is the primary milestone that determines whether a startup should scale. Learn more →
- Series A
- The first significant round of venture capital financing, typically raised after a startup has demonstrated product-market fit and early revenue. Series A investors evaluate technology architecture, team capability, and scalability — making technical due diligence critical at this stage. Learn more →
- Single-Family Office
- A family office serving one family. Technology is usually bespoke, under-documented, and concentrated in one or two people's heads — which makes key-person risk the dominant concern and succession planning a technical problem, not just a legal one. Learn more →
- SOC 2 Compliance
- A security framework developed by the American Institute of CPAs that defines criteria for managing customer data based on five trust principles: security, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality, and privacy. SOC 2 certification is increasingly required by enterprise buyers. Learn more →
- Technical Debt
- The accumulated cost of shortcuts, workarounds, and deferred maintenance in a codebase. Technical debt is not inherently bad — deliberate trade-offs can accelerate delivery — but unmanaged debt slows development, increases bugs, and makes hiring harder. Learn more →
- Technical Due Diligence
- A systematic evaluation of a company's technology assets, architecture, team, and processes — typically conducted before an investment, acquisition, or major partnership. It assesses risks, scalability, code quality, and the team's ability to execute on the roadmap. Learn more →
- Technology Roadmap
- A plan that aligns technology initiatives with business strategy over a defined timeline. Unlike a product roadmap, a technology roadmap focuses on infrastructure, platform capabilities, tooling, and technical investments needed to support current and future product goals. Learn more →
- Value Creation Plan
- The sponsor's thesis for how a portfolio company becomes more valuable during the hold period — typically some mix of revenue growth, margin expansion, and multiple expansion. Technology workstreams (cloud migration, security uplift, AI rollout, ERP modernisation, M&A integration) are justified against this plan, not on their own merits. Learn more →
- VP of Engineering
- A senior engineering leader responsible for execution, team management, and delivery. While a CTO typically owns technology strategy and architecture, a VP of Engineering focuses on building the team, establishing processes, and ensuring the engineering organization ships reliably. Learn more →
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