The Selection Process and Criteria of Impact Accelerators. An Exploratory Study

Heiko Butz,Matthias Jan Mrożewski

doi:10.3390/su13126617

Heiko Butz, Matthias Jan Mrożewski

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/su13126617

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Abstract

Start-up accelerators, a relatively new and competitive type of business incubators, are nowadays considered to be a highly effective way of providing venture support. Start-ups who have been supported through accelerators have an approximately 23% higher survival rate than other new businesses. This positive effect can be explained by the highly selective process accelerators apply when deciding on which venture projects to support. It comes as no surprise that understanding this process and the respective selection criteria is at the core of accelerator/incubator literature within entrepreneurship research. Existing research is however limited to the investigation of commercial accelerators which provide support to start-ups having an economic purpose only. Hence those academic findings cannot be simply extrapolated to accelerators supporting ventures combining economic goals with social and ecological purpose. Given the growing meaning of sustainability entrepreneurship and hence the increasing number of sustainability-oriented accelerators, the above limitation seems to be an important research gap. This paper addresses the above gap by investigating the selection processes and criteria of so-called impact accelerators focusing on the support of start-ups expected to create not only economic outcomes but also positive social and/or environmental impact. Building on existing accelerator literature, we qualitatively investigate the selection processes and criteria of nine European impact accelerators. By comparing our findings with existing research, we identify important differences between the selection approach of commercial and impact accelerators thus contributing to sustainability entrepreneurship research and practice.

Highlights

Start-up accelerators, a relatively new and competitive type of business incubators, are nowadays considered to be a highly effective way of providing venture support
Critical criterion for both: The criterion is critical for commercial accelerators and impact accelerators
Commercial accelerators consider a higher number of criteria when selecting startups compared to eight criteria considered by impact accelerators

Summary

Introduction

Start-up accelerators, a relatively new and competitive type of business incubators, are nowadays considered to be a highly effective way of providing venture support. Startups that have been supported by commercial accelerators have an approximately 23% higher survival rate than other new businesses [1] Despite this important role of accelerators for start-up success, literature on selection processes of startup accelerators is very recent and scarce. The findings are highly important but cannot be translated into the increasingly important sustainability entrepreneurship context This is because sustainability entrepreneurship goes broader than commercial entrepreneurship by combining economic, social, and ecological goals for a triple bottom line [3]. To address those complex needs of sustainability-oriented startups more effectively, a new type of accelerators has appeared in the last few years, so-called impact accelerators. Impact accelerators support early-stage startups that generate a meaningful social and/or environmental impact alongside positive financial

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