How to judge accelerator outcomes — a literature review

As part of my PhD on startup accelerators, I reviewed the academic literature around the topic of accelerator outcomes. The first, obvious area was investment returns, but the literature clearly pointed to the importance of other outcomes too. This literature review looks at how accelerator outcomes can be measured, and to what effect. The academic literature presents an unclear picture of investment outcomes in accelerators, and suggests that other outcomes may also be important but equally hard to measure.

Investment

As exemplified in the research carried out by Christiansen (2009) the early, traditional, accelerators invested in the startups on their program. The investment is relevant in different ways for the different stakeholders associated with the accelerator. For startups, it provides funding for the founders to cover their living costs during the program, and therefore not be distracted by earning money elsewhere. For the accelerator it offers a way to realise a return on the money they invest in running the program, and for investors it allows them to become involved in the board of a startup very early on, with a view to making later rounds of investment.

The investment is referred to as a ‘stipend’ by Hochberg (2015), and while it is in return for equity, she argues it should be…