Assessing the impact of seed accelerators in start-ups from emerging entrepreneurial ecosystems

Abstract

This study provides new evidence regarding the significance of enrolling in a seed accelerator programme for the performance and prospects of startups. The main novelty and contributions of this work lie in siting the analysis within an emerging entrepreneurial ecosystem (EE) and exploring the impact of both the business model and technological levels of new ventures. We tested a set of six hypotheses through empirical analysis of a dataset comprising 735 startups located in Valencia (Spain), a region representing the category of an emerging, medium-sized EE. The findings revealed that within this EE, the advantages of being accelerated tended to diminish and were more marginal than expected. Furthermore, the seed accelerator profile appeared to be of little importance to the prospects and attractiveness of firms to investors. Interestingly, their technological levels were strongly correlated with higher investment but not with a higher number of employees. The expected direct relationship between funding and firm size was also confirmed. A particularly noteworthy finding was the direct relationship between a higher technological level and business-to-business (B2B) models, as well as the opposite relationship for business-to-consumer (B2C) models. These findings have several significant implications for management and policymakers, including the apparent lack of advantages for accelerated firms in closing large investment rounds and the recommendation that incubators prioritise new ventures with high technological capacity and focussing on B2B models. Finally, we highlight the profile of startups with strong prospects for attracting investment and scaling up.