Is there a technical distinction between "early stage" funding and other "early" funding terminology

Is there a formal distinction between the term "early stage" funding and other "early" funding such as seed funding, angel funding and venture funding?

No, none of those types of words or categories are formally defined.

In fact, even just one of those terms can mean many things. Take "angel" for example. I had a guest-post on VentureBeat about how to get angel investing, and from the comments therein you could take away these differences of opinion:

• "Angel" means "Raise under $50k and bootstrap from there."
• "Angel" means "Raise under $100k and later possibly raise an A-round."
• "Angel" means "Raise $300k with an option for another $300k, with the intent to never raise a real VC round."
• "Angel" means raising money from friends and family.
• "Angel" means raising money from accredited investors who should also be company advisers.
• "Angel" means investing in (relatively) lower risk, lower return companies.
• "Angel" means investing in high-risk, high-return companies.

You can do the same for any of these terms.

Bottom line: Decide what makes sense for you, and go for that. Be able to explain what you want in one sentence, then nomenclature doesn't matter.