[greenyoda]

I'm curious: at what point do we stop calling a company a "startup"? A company that has 750 employees (as Fab had before their restructuring) and has existed for three years sounds like a somewhat mature medium-sized company that has accumulated a substantial amount of inertia and bureaucracy (a horde of middle managers, an HR department, etc.). When I think of startups, I think of at most a few dozen employees struggling to get their first product to profitability.

[semerda]

I would say a "startup" is a a company trying to find a business model that is scalable & repeatable. I would go as far as argue that a startup is any company pre Series funding i.e. seed.

Series A funding investor expectations are for the company to grow/scale. At that & subsequent funding phases the startup should be called a business. Not a startup.

[greenyoda]

Apparently, Fab is up to Series C ($105 million in July, 2012):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fab.com#Funding