Startup accelerator

Startup accelerators, also known as seed accelerators, are fixed-term, cohort-based programs, that include mentorship and educational components and culminate in a public pitch event or demo day. While traditional business incubators are often government-funded, generally take no equity, and focus on biotech, financial technology ("FinTech"), medical technology ("MedTech"), clean tech or product-centric companies, accelerators can be either privately or publicly funded and focus on a wide range of industries. Unlike business incubators, the application process for startup accelerators is open to anyone, but highly competitive. There are specific types of startup accelerators, such as corporate accelerator, which are often subsidiaries or programs of larger corporations that act like startup accelerators.

The main differences between business incubators and accelerators are:

The primary value to the entrepreneur is derived from the mentoring, connections, and the recognition of being chosen to be a part of the accelerator. The business model is based on generating venture style returns, not rent, or fees for services.

Seed accelerators do not necessarily need to include a physical space, but many do. The process that startups go through in the accelerator can be separated into five distinct phases: awareness, application, program, demo day, and post demo day.

Several accelerators focused on hardware innovation have been founded in Silicon Valley and in other regions worldwide, including in Shenzhen, China.

The first seed accelerator was Y Combinator, started in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 2005, and then later moved to Silicon Valley by Paul Graham. It was followed by Techstars (in 2006), Seedcamp (in 2007), Startupbootcamp (in 2010), Tech Wildcatters (in 2011), several accelerators of SOSV, and Boomtown Boulder (2014).

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