"There is significant evidence that women entrepreneurs face unique challenges in starting and growing businesses, particularly in emerging markets. Acceleration programs represent one potential model for overcoming these challenges through support services and investment. Using GALI data on more than 14,000 ventures across 160 countries, this knowledge brief examines trends in the acceleration of women-led ventures."

"The number of accelerators has increased considerably in various emerging market countries in the past decade, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. This includes Nigeria, the largest economy in West Africa. One important question then is: are these incubators and accelerators effective in providing support to enterprises in emerging markets, especially youth-led enterprises? This knowledge brief seeks to capture information from our study of incubators and accelerators in Nigeria in relation to their effectiveness in supporting youth-led enterprises."

"Increasing attention - both in the scholarly literature and in the world of policy makers and practitioners - is being paid to the challenges facing female entrepreneurs. What was once assumed to be a merit-based system for encouraging and rewarding entrepreneurs is now understood to operate in gendered ways that in many cases disadvantage female founders. These effects occur across the entire pipeline, beginning with the dearth of women seeking to start high growth companies, to the lack of funding opportunities and mentorship. There are substantial differences in the number of startups led by women, their levels of relevant experience and the amount of funding - both debt and equity - they seek and receive. Some have argued that women tend to found lower potential startups. Yet, even controlling for quality, we see many implicit biases in how female founders are treated. One important approach to redressing inequalities might be through the use of accelerators. Entrepreneurship accelerators are proliferating in both developed and developing economies as different cities, regions and sectors seek to increase economic growth and employment. Accelerators are designed to give a boost to startups by providing in a concentrated way the mentorship, networks, training and financing required to be successful. The presence of accelerators could have the potential to solve some of the challenges female entrepreneurs face, however preliminary evidence suggests that they, for the most part, seem to be perpetuating the gendered dynamics that exist in the entrepreneurial system. On the other hand, there is no systematic research on how accelerators do or might address the gendered dynamics of entrepreneurship. Because accelerators are seen as such an important policy tool for increasing entrepreneurial success, it is imperative that we develop and analyze systematic data on accelerators and their effects, particularly on female founders. In this study, we will draw on what is known to date on female entrepreneurs and more broadly on the research on gender in organizations and the economy to understand the dynamics of acceleration in entrepreneurship. Using a longitudinal database of over 3,000 ventures in nearly 50 accelerators, we trace the effects of selection into the accelerator and the acceleration process on outcomes for women-only, women-led, and male-only venture teams. We couple survey data with interviews of accelerators to understand whether and when acceleration can be a tool for mitigating gender bias in female entrepreneurship."

"The Global Accelerator Learning Initiative collects information from entrepreneurs when they apply to accelerator programs. This data summary includes information from 843 ventures operating in Brazil, contributed by 35 accelerator programs."

"The Global Accelerator Learning Initiative collects information from entrepreneurs when they apply to accelerator programs. This data summary includes information from 812 ventures operating in Central America, contributed by 56 accelerator programs."

"In partnership with the ANDE India Chapter, GALI is working to increase understanding of acceleration and early stage ventures in India. This data summary includes information from 1,214 ventures operating in India, contributed by 26 accelerators."

"In Mexico, early-stage ventures are becoming a focus for governments and investors that want to spur economic development. Since 2013, venture capital activity has grown, while Mexico City has become a social enterprise and impact investing hub for Latin America. Accelerators play a role in developing a pipeline of investment-ready businesses, but little research has been done on the entrepreneurs attending these programs and how they perform with this specific support. With the support of Citibanamex Compromiso Social, GALI is working to increase our understanding of acceleration and early-stage ventures in Mexico. This report includes application and one-year follow-up information from 318 ventures operating in Mexico, contributed by 15 accelerator programs."

"The Global Accelerator Learning Initiative collects information from entrepreneurs when they apply to accelerator programs. This report summarizes application data collected from ventures operating in Mexico that applied to participating accelerator programs between 2013 and early 2016."

"This data summary provides a snapshot of more than 2,500 early-stage ventures that applied to over 50 acceleration programs in Sub-Saharan Africa, and includes regional insights for East and West Africa and country-specific information for Kenya, Uganda, and Nigeria."

"To understand the intermediary role of accelerators in the developing regional entrepreneurial ecosystem of Bangalore, we analyze data from 54 interviews with accelerator graduates, accelerator managers, and other ecosystem stakeholders, and from 49 websites, 13 online video interviews, 26 online news sources and 301 pages of policy documents. Specifically, we adopt a socially-situated entrepreneurial cognition approach to theorize how accelerator expertise, existing at a meso-level, intermediates between (micro-level) founders and the (macro-level). ecosystem. In our model, four types of accelerator expertise-connection, development, coordination, and selection-together increase stakeholders' commitment to the entrepreneurial ecosystem, leading to venture validation (success or failure) and ecosystem additionality. These findings indicate that accelerators contribute to ecosystems in a way that is distinct from, but supportive of, building individual ventures."