A new report published by NESTA (the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts – an independent body with a mission to make the UK more innovative), predicts that we can expect to see many more new accelerator programmes created in the coming years, and therefore it’s important to understand their processes to better support the growth of innovative startups.
The opportunity
Bootstrapped startups need to look at the plethora of incubators as an opportunity to become better entrepreneurs by learning from your peers and mentors, and by creating powerful networks across geographies.
Criticisms of the model
Despite the generally positive feedback from investors and entrepreneurs alike, incubators also have their detractors: they only build small companies (so far), they divert talent from other high-growth startups and good companies sometime fail despite the incubator program.
Download the Startup Factories report here.
I'm a former general partner at google ventures, head of Google for Entrepreneurs in Europe and founding head of Campus London, Google's first physical hub for startups.
I'm also the founder of Techbikers, a non-profit bringing together the startup ecosystem on cycling challenges in support of Room to Read. Since inception in 2012 we've built 11 schools and 50 libraries in the developing world.
- Weekly FIRGUN Newsletter – March 7 2025 - March 7, 2025
- The Future of AI Value: Beyond Foundation Models - March 6, 2025
- Weekly Firgun Newsletter – February 28, 2025 - February 28, 2025
Comments are closed.