"Si bien la literatura existente ha encontrado que los programas de aceleración tienen un efecto positivo en el crecimiento de nuevas empresas, investigaciones recientes han mostrado que aún hay una demanda significativa de capital financiero, particularmente en economías en desarrollo. Existen pocos estudios enfocados a cómo las aceleradoras (especialmente las que no invierten directamente en sus empresas) conectan con proveedores de financiamiento y qué tan efectivos resultan estos esfuerzos. La Iniciativa Global de Aprendizaje en Aceleración (GALI, por sus siglas en inglés), una colaboración entre la Red Aspen de Emprendedores para el Desarrollo (ANDE por sus siglas en inglés) y la Universidad Emory, fue creada para explorar preguntas como ésta. Entre 2013 y 2020, GALI ha colaborado con docenas de programas de aceleración para recolectar información detallada de las y los emprendedores que solicitaron ingreso a sus respectivos programas. Posteriormente, estos(as) emprendedores(as) (incluyendo quienes no fueron seleccionados para un programa de aceleración) fueron encuestados cada año para obtener datos valiosos sobre el desarrollo de sus negocios a lo largo de tiempo. Este informe explora y presenta la información de GALI para emprendimientos centroamericanos"

"While studies have found that acceleration does, in the aggregate, have a positive effect on new venture growth, further investigation has shown that there is significant unmet need for financial capital, particularly in developing economies. Little investigation has been done on how accelerators (particularly those that do not invest in their ventures directly) make connections with finance providers and whether these efforts are effective. The Global Accelerator Learning Initiative (GALI), a partnership between the Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs (ANDE) and Emory University, was created to explore questions such as these. Between 2013 – 2020, GALI partnered with dozens of accelerator programs to collect detailed data from entrepreneurs who applied to their respective application processes. These entrepreneurs, including those not selected into a program, were then resurveyed annually to gather valuable follow-up data about the status of their ventures over time. This knowledge brief explores GALI data from Central American startups, as well as qualitative insights from accelerators and finance providers."

"Villgro is a business incubator with a unique rural orientation. It concerns itself not only with the launch of new businesses but more generally with the transfer of new products, knowledge and services into rural space. Faced with the challenge of finding technologies that match rural requirements, Villgro has linked marketable product/service concepts from diverse sources with entrepreneurs who have start-up experience—so-called serial entrepreneurs. Other incubators may have difficulty imitating Villgro’s business model. The conditions for its development are unique, its management approaches are relatively untested and the values of its management team are deeply intertwined with perceptions of how the rural business system operates in India. However, other startup incubators can learn from Villgro the importance of getting management basics right before attempting to transform an entire agricultural sector. Good governance, transparency, accountability, building teams around highly capable employees and continuously enhancing their management skills are important no matter the strategic orientation of the emerging incubator."

"What do accelerators do? Broadly speaking, they help ventures define and build their initial products, identify promising customer segments, and secure resources, including capital and employees. More specifically, accelerator programs are programs of limited-duration—lasting about three months—that help cohorts of startups with the new venture process. They usually provide a small amount of seed capital, plus working space. They also offer a plethora of networking opportunities, with both peer ventures and mentors, who might be successful entrepreneurs, program graduates, venture capitalists, angel investors, or even corporate executives. Finally, most programs end with a grand event, a “demo day” where ventures pitch to a large audience of qualified investors."

"Social impact accelerators (SIAs) seek to select startups with the potential to generate financial returns and social impact. Through the lenses of signaling theory and gender role congruity theory, we examine 2324 social startups that applied to 123 SIAs globally in 2016 and 2017 and find that SIAs are more likely to accept startups that signal their economic and social credibility. Moreover, while we find that the influence of these signals is strongest when they are congruent with the stereotypes associated with the lead founder's gender, men seem to experience better outcomes from gender incongruity than women."

"Village Capital – a seed-stage accelerator that runs programs for entrepreneurs in impact-oriented sectors – was the first to work with the Entrepreneurship Database Program, starting in 2013. Application and follow-up data have now been collected from fifteen different Village Capital programs. These data provide a unique opportunity to examine the performance of ventures accelerated by these different Village Capital programs compared to those that applied but were not selected. This report is divided into two parts: The first section reveals differences in venture performance among accelerated versus non-accelerated ventures based on one-year changes in revenue, employees, and investment. This information is then used to identify the highest and lowest performing Village Capital programs and presented to a panel of experts who suggest potential reasons for these differences. The second section tests these predictions using qualitative and quantitative research methods, revealing several key insights for Village Capital and other early-stage venture accelerator programs."

"Despite the emergence of startup accelerators as venture development organizations (VDOs) to high-growth firms, research has yet to identify where these accelerators fit into the venture development ecosystem. By clarifying and reviewing three different subsystems in the entrepreneurial ecosystem, our paper proposes that as an extension of the current incubation mechanism, accelerators contribute to the entrepreneurial ecosystem by transforming entrepreneurs and their ventures at early stages. Drawing upon the Pipeline model (Lichtenstein, G. A., and T. S. Lyons. 2006."Managing the community's pipeline of entrepreneurs and enterprises: A new way of thinking about business assets." Economic Development Quarterly 20 (4): 377-386.), we first plot where the accelerator model fits in the broader entrepreneurship ecosystem, and then demonstrate how different types of accelerators help participating entrepreneurs and their ventures progress along the venture development pipeline. Our theoretical approach contributes to both the entrepreneurship ecosystem and the accelerator literature and provides a practical map for both policymakers and early-stage entrepreneurs to manage and utilize their entrepreneurship ecosystem more effectively."

"This report sets out to evaluate the role that accelerators — organizations that provide capacity-building support to early-stage startups to help them scale their companies and attract investment — can play in addressing the gender financing gap. To determine this, we turned our attention to two primary questions, with a specific focus on startups in emerging markets: what is the gender financing gap pre- and post-acceleration, and what factors explain the gap? What strategies could accelerators employ to address the gender financing gap?"

"This report presents the Rankings and Recognitions derived from the World Benchmark Study 2019-2020, sponsored by Qatar Development Bank. While traditional incubation and acceleration powerhouses in North America and Western Europe continue to be strongly represented, programs from around the world have captured top spots, underscoring the global importance of university, public, private and corporate incubators and accelerators for successfully nurturing the visionaries and changemakers of tomorrow."