student-led accelerator that takes no equity in participating start-ups. Its six-month programme is for bioentrepreneurs and matches ventures with mentors. The ARC accelerator, meanwhile, targets those in the social sciences, arts and humanities and o ers a four-stage tailored programme to help validate business ideas, while the Huckletree accelerator has a 12-week programme that focuses on raising investment among enterprises with prototypes in place. The UK’s National Westminster Bank also runs a free accelerator to help those who are looking for growth funding, entering new markets or scaling their business. Elsewhere, Google for Startups India is an accelerator for technology ventures and o ers technical support, as well as coaching leadership and customer acquisition. Of course, other organisations run accelerators and incubators too. Corporates might use them to improve their innovation capability, develop new products and make plans to access new markets outside the main organisation. Such endeavours can often be accomplished more quickly this way as they are much less likely to be held back by corporate bureaucracy. As well as pursuing their own projects, corporate incubators can host and collaborate with external ventures, before potentially buying them out at a later stage. This type of incubator can be attractive to start-ups who are speci cally looking to access resources and experience from the corporate world, as well as funding. GSK’s Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst incubator provides one such example. Pros and cons of backing start-ups In terms of ful lling their mission, most research suggests that incubators and accelerators are very e ective. According to the International Business Innovation Association, companies that have been
Accelerators are designed to o er short, intense programmes, most commonly bringing a group of founders together to start as a class or cohort. This fosters a sense of camaraderie between participants and creates a network that can generate collaborators, suppliers or customers. As with incubators, accelerators can adopt di erent nancing models, with private accelerators commonly taking an equity stake in their participating start-ups and university accelerators making use of grants. Accelerators tend to serve slightly more established and potentially high-growth companies. Indeed, they might be expected to have a product or service ready to market. In this way, accelerators do not help ventures at the business concept phase for the most part, focusing instead on helping new ventures to grow and become investment-ready. At the end of an accelerator programme, start-ups often have a chance to pitch at a demo day in front of investors to raise further funding. One of the earliest examples of an accelerator is Silicon Valley’s Y Combinator, said to have helped develop more than 4,000 companies, including Dropbox and Airbnb. Accelerator programme examples Accelerators have proved very popular with students and many universities and business schools now run successful accelerator programmes. Esade in Barcelona, for example, runs eWorks each summer, aiming to attract ventures with high-growth potential and o ering a demo day at the end, where cohort members can pitch to potential investors from the school’s extensive network. The programme takes place online, but there is also access to a physical incubator for those based in Barcelona. It’s free to join (ie no equity is taken) and admitted projects also receive €10,000 worth of support. Elsewhere, Delft University in the Netherlands has a three-month accelerator for digital or hardware projects that already have a prototype, with the goal of helping them scale up. Copenhagen Business School runs Go Grow, a six-month programme designed for those who not only have a prototype but also, ideally, some early customers. Its focus is on supporting initiatives that address the UN Sustainable Development Goals. There are, again, options for student ventures outside those run directly by higher education institutions. Nucleate is an example of a
24 Business Impact ISSUE 1 2024
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