Shell Company
A "shell company" is any company that has:
no or nominal operations and
either
no or nominal assets or
assets consisting solely of any amount of cash and cash equivalents and nominal other assets.
The SEC does not define the term "nominal." However, note that the definition does not refer to revenues but to operations. Thus the SEC has later said that this definition is not intended to capture a “startup company,” or, in other words, a company with a limited operating history, as it believes that such a company does not meet the condition of having “no or nominal operations.”