Where Do Accelerators Fit in the Venture Creation Pipeline? Different Values Brought by Different Types of Accelerators

Abstract

Despite the emergence of startup accelerators as venture development organizations (VDOs) to high-growth firms, research has yet to identify where these accelerators fit into the venture development ecosystem. By clarifying and reviewing three different subsystems in the entrepreneurial ecosystem, our paper proposes that as an extension of the current incubation mechanism, accelerators contribute to the entrepreneurial ecosystem by transforming entrepreneurs and their ventures at early stages. Drawing upon the Pipeline model (Lichtenstein, G. A., and T. S. Lyons. 2006. “Managing the community's pipeline of entrepreneurs and enterprises: A new way of thinking about business assets.” Economic Development Quarterly 20 (4): 377–386.), we first plot where the accelerator model fits in the broader entrepreneurship ecosystem, and then demonstrate how different types of accelerators help participating entrepreneurs and their ventures progress along the venture development pipeline. Our theoretical approach contributes to both the entrepreneurship ecosystem and the accelerator literature and provides a practical map for both policymakers and early-stage entrepreneurs to manage and utilize their entrepreneurship ecosystem more effectively.

Business model innovation in corporate entrepreneurship: exploratory insights from corporate accelerators

“…Due to the relative novelty of accelerators, there is also little systematic research on their impact on participating companies and the start-up community. This is largely related to the various business model logics of corporate accelerators (Pauwels et al 2016;Pilewicz and Maria 2017;Yang et al 2018). The categorization of business models of cooperation between corporations and start-ups offers initial guidelines but lacks further conceptualization of the specific motives and challenges associated with it.…”

Cómo las aceleradoras de empresas fomentan las capacidades dinámicas de las start-ups: un estudio de caso

“…This argument agrees with Hackett and Dilts (2004), who view dynamic capabilities framework an appropriate approach to "facilitate inquiries into the way in which business incubators builds new venture development resources and capabilities and allocates these resources to the transformation of startups into value-producers" (Hackett & Dilts, 2004, p. 46). Both business incubators and accelerators have been acknowledged by policymakers, private investors, corporations and academics, as effective ways to support the creation of new firms and deal with their needs in their early stages (Pauwels et al, 2016;Yang, Kher, & Lyons, 2018) so we believe that the dynamic capabilities view is also an appropriate lens to analyze the processes embedded in business accelerator programs and explore their outcomes.…”

Assessing and Comparing Top Accelerators in Brazil, India, and the USA: Through the Lens of New Ventures’ Performance

“…The most prominent added value provided as part of the network capabilities are seed funding, mentorship, and access to a large investor network (Hochberg, 2016). Since accelerators make the first round of investment in these new ventures, they are driven to increase the value of their investment or obtain an exit for investment with superior returns in the near future (Yang et al, 2018).…”

“…funding, survivability, acquisition, and growth. Since deal-flow accelerators receive funding from private investors like business angels or venture capital funds (VC), their core objective is to identify and fund investable ventures (Yang et al, 2018), so we introduced four variables to focus on the ventures' funding performance. These approaches overcome the abovementioned three limitations, viz.…”