In a knowledge-based economy, the creation of wealth becomes synonymous with creating products and services with large software content. However, despite a few major players, the software industry as a whole is fragmented and consists mainly of small, niche market entrepreneurial ventures. The authors study the California software industry to characterize the major barriers to success for these ventures. Simultaneously, a fundamental shift of software technology to a component-based development paradigm will reinforce the industry's fragmented nature by fuelling a third party, independent software component economy. Coupled with the globalization of the IT industry in general, the need for startups and small companies to form strategic partnerships will become increasingly critical to their ability to create wealth. In recent years, innovative public–private partnerships have attempted to assist startups by addressing their lack of physical resources or capital. This is best illustrated by the dramatic growth of incubators and regional capital networks. In this paper, the authors propose a “virtual incubator” model to facilitate startup success and business network formation, shifting the focus to the “virtual value chain” and to connecting startups with business expertise and strategic partners in the marketplace. The authors provide a theoretical basis for the model and its implementation, important to potential investors in virtual incubators.