grubstake
- n funds advanced to a prospector or to someone starting a business in return for a share of the profits
 - v supply with funds in return for a promised share of profits
 
- A former wildcatter who parlayed a $2,500 grubstake into a worldwide company with holdings stretching at times from Canada to the North Sea, Pickens had been gunning for Cities .
 - For many a talented newcomer, a musical grubstake is still virtually impossible to find.
 - It mattered nothing that a man could scratch and sift his way through grubstake after grubstake without success.