The Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Empresa recently asked for public comment (consulta pública) before preparing the text of a legislative bill (anteproyecto de ley) to be presented to the Spanish parliament entitled Ley de Fomento del Ecosistema de Startups. Yes, that’s right “startups” are the subject of this new legislation, with no attempt to render or even define this corporate form in Spanish. In fact, in its call for comments the government is still seeking a delimitación conceptual de las “startups” para centrar el objeto de aplicacion de las particularidades y excepciones normativas que se creen para estas.

When I first read this news, I asked myself whether it’s true that there really is no appropriate Spanish translation of “startup,” and whether Spanish entrepreneurs have simply adopted the English startup-related terminology or, to the contrary, have developed Spanish “equivalents” when discussing this subject.

In my research I found many definitions of “startup” (such as empresa de nueva creación que implementa nuevos modelos de negocio, a menudo apoyada en tecnología digital) and translations such as empresa incipiente; empresa emergente; microempresa de nueva creación or empresa innovadora de nueva creación. And I have to admit that none of these renderings seems to capture the essence of “startup” as reflected in the definition shown above.

It turns out that many startup business concepts do indeed have Spanish translations (see the list below), but will there never be a Spanish rendering of the term “startup” itself? Will “startup” be the first anglicismo (that I am aware of) to actually be used in a piece of Spanish legislation?

As Spanish-English translators, do you (as readers of this blog or my Tweets) have an appropriate Spanish rendering for “startup” to suggest to the Spanish government? The deadline for submitting comments is January 25, 2019 and can be sent to this address: leystartups@mineco.es.

For background, here is the call for public comment (consulta pública): https://avancedigital.gob.es/es-es/Participacion/Paginas/anteproyecto-ley-ecosistema-Startups.aspx

And this is the texto de la consulta pública outlining the areas on which the Spanish government is seeking input: https://avancedigital.gob.es/es-es/Participacion/Documents/anteproyecto-ley-startups.pdf

o-o-o-o-o

Here are some of the startup-related terms and concepts that I found in my readings do indeed have possible Spanish renderings (or at least definitional translations):

• behavior economics—economía conductual
• bootstrapping—autofinanciación; financiación propia/con los recursos del emprendedor
• break-even point—punto de equilibrio (entre ingresos y gastos)
• bridge loan—préstamo puente
• burning—consumo de caja
• business ecosystem—ecosistema empresarial
• business incubator—incubadora/vivero de empresas
• cap table (capitalization table)—lista de aportaciones de los inversores
• churn rate—tasa/ratio de abandono
• coworking—trabajo cooperativo
• crowdfunding—financiación colectiva/participativa; micromecenazgo
• due diligence—auditoría preinversión
• elevator pitch—presentación rápida/sucinta/resumida del proyecto empresarial
• fundraising—captación de recursos/inversiones/aportaciones/capital
• How might we (HMW)? method—método de instrospección
• key performance indicator (KPI)—indicador clave de rendimiento/desempeño
• mockup—prototipo
• non-disclosure agreement—acuerdo de confidencialidad
• phantom shares—acciones fantasma; bonos multianuales
• pitch—presentación del proyecto empresarial
• postmoney valuation—valoración posinversión
• premoney valuation—valoración preinversión
• roll-out of business plan—ejecución/implementación del plan empresarial
• seed capital—capital semilla; capital inicial; aportación económica inicial
• seed investor—inversor inicial
• sharing economy—economía colaborativa
• startup aid—ayuda a la creación de empresas
• stock option—opción sobre acciones
• term-sheet—hoja de condiciones (de la inversión)
• venture capital—capital riesgo
• venture capitalist—inversor de capital riesgo
• waterfall development—desarrollo en cascadas
• wireframe—esquema/prototipo de página web

Derecho de la persona has sometimes been misunderstood and mistranslated variously as “personal law,” “rights of the person” and even “civil rights.” But Derecho de la persona (also called Derecho de las personas and Derecho de personas) is actually a major branch of civil law in civil code countries, governing a broad range of personal attributes. This “Law of Persons” has been defined as consisting of “all norms concerning the status of individuals and legal entities which are the subjects of the law.”* As an example, here are some of the main areas regulated in the Spanish Civil Code’s Libro Primero “De las Personas”:

• Nacimiento—birth, including commencement of legal personality (comienzo de la personalidad) and acquisition of legal capacity (acquisición de la capacidad jurídica), defined as aptitud para ser titular de derechos y obligaciones.
• Estado civil—civil status(es); often translated as “marital status,” but the expression is actually much broader and the appropriate translation may vary greatly, depending on context (more on on estado civil here).
• Capacidad—legal capacity as defined above under nacimiento; plus capacidad de obrar, i.e., the ability to exercise legal capacity, that is, to exercise rights and assume obligations.
• Incapacitación— including grounds for an adjudication of incompetence (causas de incapacitación) and incompetency proceedings (procedimiento de incapacitación).
• Edad—age, including aspects of minority (minoría); means of emancipation (emancipación) and the legal implications of reaching the age of majority (alcanzar la mayoría de edad).
• Nacionalidad—nationality and the means for acquiring citizenship (adquisición de la nacionalidad)
• Domicilio—domicile or main residence (domicilio habitual efectiva)
• Vecindad civil—regional domicile that determines whether a person is subject to general civil legislation (the Código Civil) or to specific local law (Derecho foral o especial) existing in certain Spanish regions.
• Ausencia—long-term absence of missing persons (desaparecidos), who may be judicially declared ausentes so that in the interim a representative of their interests (representante del ausente) may be appointed by the court.
• Declaración de muerte—declaration of the death of a missing person presumed dead

*Glendon, Mary Ann, et. al., Comparative Legal Traditions. St. Paul: West Group, 2015, p. 113.