Accelerators as a Tool for Encouraging Female Entrepreneurship

Abstract

This study was driven by an initial finding that female founders’ participation rates in Israeli accelerators are significantly higher (15.3%) than their participation rate in the Israeli startup sector (7.4%). Linking accelerators’ design to the known barriers for female entrepreneurship, we examined how accelerators may enhance female entrepreneurship by addressing their specific needs. Based on a dataset (N = 779) of structured interviews with startup founders who participated in accelerator programs in Israel during 2011–2019, we present evidence that female founders seek and gain more entrepreneurial training during their participation in accelerators than do male founders; place more emphasis on and succeed more in strengthening their networks and entrepreneurial self-confidence; and increase their entrepreneurial self-efficacy more than men. Female founders also seek to increase their legitimacy more than do men, but did not report making more progress in this aspect. Finally, both the goal of and progress in obtaining access to capital received lower ratings from female founders than from male founders. We discuss the implications of our findings for the use of accelerators and other support programs as means of increasing women’s participation rates in innovative entrepreneurship.