A quantitative insight into the impact and performance of seed accelerators and their accelerated start-ups

Resumen

The research topic of this dissertation is the study of SAs, considered as a new generation of business incubators (Bøllingtoft, 2012). These recent organizations are specifically set up to develop sounder projects and enhance their chances to overcome initial market barriers and financial difficulties. SAs are especially designed to assist new ventures (start-ups) early in their lifecycle (Birdsall, et al., 2013). To achieve this goal, SAs work around a scheduled training program accepting a limited number of participating business projects. The Seed Accelerator Program (SAP) is a fixed-term, cohort-based scheduled plan with mentorship, educational and networking components that culminates in a funding event known as “Demo Day” (Cohen and Hochberg, 2014). SAs are organizations originated and located inside business ecosystems. These ecosystems are made up of several actors that stimulate the creation of new companies, including governments, universities, investors, businesses, and start-up incubators and accelerators. The business ecosystem presents different dimensions depending on how these actors interact with each other. One of these dimensions is shaped with the name of “entrepreneurial ecosystem”, defined as a context designed to foster entrepreneurship within a given territory, forming a horizontal network (customers and suppliers) and a vertical network (competitors and allies) (Theodoraki and Messeghem, 2017). In this context, SAs are active participants of the entrepreneurial ecosystem as they promote the creation of a great number of new innovative businesses. Likewise, start-up companies play a crucial and active role inside the entrepreneurial ecosystem. A start-up is a newly created innovative company that seeks a scalable, repeatable and profitable business model. Start-ups normally have a highly innovative business model and are specialized in digital and technological products and services. But start-up companies also face a number of challenges that can affect their chances of survival, such as access to financial resources (Smilor, 1997), lack of experience in the initial team (Gruber et al., 2008), the need to attract highly qualified and specialized professionals (Zott and Huy, 2007), or limited knowledge on how to take advantage of certain opportunities (Ambos and Birkinshaw, 2010). Business incubators (BIs) and SAs are part of the organizations that support these new start-ups. The entrepreneurs seeking to be helped by BIs and SAs are those who want to launch a business as profitable as possible in a limited period of time, and this is the promise that this typology of organizations extend to the entrepreneurial ecosystem. Both BIs and SAs allow young companies to start through a learning, consulting and investment process, with the aim of increasing their chances of survival and growth in the market during their first months of life (Cohen and Hochberg, 2014). The number of SAs has increased from the first known Accelerator in 2005 (Y-Combinator) to an estimated 3,000 worldwide (Hochberg, 2016). Particularly Europe experienced a boom in the number of SAs since the beginning of the financial crisis at the end of 2007 (Salido et al., 2013). Hoffman and Radojevich-Kelley (2012) suggest that SAs increased in numbers since 2008 because the recession decreased the amount of funds previously available for start-ups, especially from private investors and bank loans. This decrease in alternative financing made SAs more attractive to start-up entrepreneurs. Hathaway (2016) estimated that SAs growth rate was 50% per year in the period between 2008 and 2014. Furthermore, SAs maintain a key role in the innovation and development capacity of a region, since they stimulate the economy through job creation and the attraction of talent, providing opportunities for national and international growth and the expansion of local companies. In developed countries, particularly in the United States, BIs and SAs are leading the promotion and creation of new companies, generating qualified employment and facilitating technology transfer between innovative companies. Despite the growth that SAs have experienced in recent years, there is limited research on this phenomenon, mainly due to their novelty and limited data availability. The general absence of large-scale representative public databases makes it difficult for researchers to assess the impact of such programs (Hochberg, 2016). As Cohen and Hochberg (2014) point out, the lack of studies on the performance of SAs makes their efficacy unclear. In fact, little research has explored, even at a descriptive level, the effectiveness of these programs or the reasons behind achieving better or worse results. Since the performance measures to define the effectiveness and success of these initiatives are not yet clearly established, further research based on the impact of SAs will require complete and updated information regarding the survival and growth prospects of the hosted start-ups (Stayton and Mangematin, 2019). Moreover, while SAs programs have proliferated, a consensual analysis on how measuring their performance remains poorly understood, as well as their effects on employment creation, source of investment, start-up survival rates, and economic growth. This information is critical for an entrepreneur considering to participate in a SAP (Cohen and Hochberg, 2014). Much of the limited research to date on the acceleration field falls into one of these four categories: (1) conceptual descriptions of the accelerator model (Cohen and Hochberg, 2014; Dempwolf et al., 2014; Hochberg, 2016); (2) qualitative analyses on how SAs can serve to accelerate new companies (Kim and Wagman, 2012; Hoffman and Radojevich-Kelley, 2012; Cohen, 2013; Pauwels et al., 2016; Cohen et al., 2019); (3) quantitative studies that attempt to assess whether SAs have a positive effect on the results of companies participating in their programs (Smith and Hannigan, 2015; Cohen et al., 2019; Fehder and Hochberg, 2019; Hallen et al., 2020); and (4) empirical attempts to assess whether SAs have a negative or inconclusive effect on the results of accelerated start-ups (Smith et al., 2015; Gonzalez-Uribe and Leatherbee, 2017; Yu, 2020). Therefore, the purpose of this dissertation is to address this gap by providing a conceptual framework regarding the performance of SAs along multiple dimensions that may be of importance for entrepreneurs, investors, policy makers, and shareholders. This research aims to contribute to this field through three pioneering empirical analyses on the performance of SAs (Chapter 3, 4 and 5), and the use of three broad and representative samples of the world population. For this purpose, we selected a set of variables and measures used in the literature of BIs, and more recently in the literature of SAs. To this extent, we provide a list of essential indicators for the performance of SAs based on a broad literature review. These indicators will allow us to better asses SAs impact on their accelerated start-ups, and therefore, the effects on the entrepreneurial ecosystem where they are located. ------ El tema de investigación de esta tesis es el estudio de las aceleradoras de emprendimiento (AE), consideradas la nueva generación de incubadora de empresas (Bøllingtoft, 2012). Tanto las incubadoras como las aceleradoras permiten a las empresas jóvenes comenzar su actividad a través de un proceso de aprendizaje, consultoría e inversión, con el objetivo de aumentar sus posibilidades de supervivencia y crecimiento en el mercado durante sus primeros meses de vida (Cohen y Hochberg, 2014). El número de AE ha aumentado drásticamente desde la primera Aceleradora conocida en 2005 (Y Combinator), hasta un estimado de más de 3.000 AE en todo el mundo (Hochberg, 2016). Europa en particular, experimentó un auge en el número de AE desde el comienzo de la crisis financiera a finales de 2007 (Salido et al., 2013). En los países desarrollados, particularmente en los Estados Unidos, las incubadoras y las aceleradoras están liderando la promoción y la creación de start-ups, generando empleo cualificado y facilitando la transferencia de tecnología entre empresas innovadoras. A pesar del crecimiento que las AE han experimentado en los últimos años, existe investigación limitada sobre este fenómeno, principalmente debido a su novedad y a la disponibilidad limitada de datos (Hochberg, 2016). La existencia de análisis consensuados sobre cómo medir el desempeño de las AE, así como el papel que desempeñan en la creación de empleo, la estimulación de las operaciones de inversión, el incremento de las tasas de supervivencia inicial de sus empresas aceleradas y el crecimiento económico de una región, supone una información crítica para el emprendedor que esté considerando participar en un PAE, así como para todas las partes interesadas en el éxito de estas iniciativas (Cohen y Hochberg, 2014). El propósito de esta tesis es abordar la disparidad existente en esta área de estudio, al proporcionar un marco conceptual con respecto al desempeño de las AE a lo largo de múltiples dimensiones que son importantes para los gerentes de estas organizaciones, así como para los emprendedores, inversores y formuladores de políticas. La presente investigación tiene como objetivo contribuir en este campo a través de tres análisis pioneros sobre el desempeño de las AE (Capítulo 3, 4 y 5), mediante el uso de tres muestras amplias y representativas de la población mundial. Para este propósito, hemos seleccionado un conjunto de variables y medidas empleadas en la literatura de las IE y más recientemente en la literatura de las AE. En este sentido, proporcionaremos una lista de indicadores esenciales para el desempeño de las aceleradoras basados en una amplia revisión de la literatura. Esto nos permitirá evaluar mejor el impacto de las AE con respecto a sus nuevas empresas aceleradas y, por lo tanto, medir sus efectos en el ecosistema emprendedor donde se ubican.