Choosing the Right Accelerator

It seems everyone is getting into the incubation/ acceleration game now. According to this list, there are hundreds  (and the list is a year old). So, with so many incubators all offering something that appears to be similar, how do you choose which one is right for you?

GigaOm posted this week about history repeating itself with most incubator programs doomed to fail. I’m sure they’re right.

To me, there are three main reasons to become part of an incubator or accelerator:

Mentorship: from peers and from actual mentors

Network

Capital

That’s it!

When you apply those criteria the filtering should become very clear.

Mentoring: The best entrepreneurs want to go to the best accelerators. And a huge chunk of the actual day to day value add you get comes from the other teams that are going through the same thing. You want to be part of the best cohorts.

Network: This is tied to the quality of the teams and also to the volume of teams. Our portfolio company Rewardli graduated from 500 Startups. They graduated some time ago but continue to get huge value from being part of that community.

Network also comes from the mentors. The best accelerators attract the best mentors. Period.

Capital: At the end of the day it’s all about capital. Not the $ 25K you get for being in the program, but the follow on capital. This means that the accelerator you choose must be completely plugged in to the angel and VC World. The extent to which it is plugged in determines who applies and who will become a mentor, so once again – it’s all about the capital.

Y Combinator, Techstars, Seedcamp (in Europe) and 500 Startups are clearly the top tier. They were out of the gate early and are dedicated to running these programs. And they’re well plugged into the investor ecosystem.

Who comes after them? We think we have an amazing offering at Founderfuel. Our 1st cohort graduated Nov. 8, presenting to a packed house that included over 100 investors. In the short time since that demo day (which included US thanksgiving and Christmas breaks), 1/3 of the teams have secured follow on funding. In a few weeks over 1/2 will be funded and off to the races. One company, Playerize, raised it’s seed round and just yesterday announced it’s series A.

How does that compare to the top tier? Well, Techstars Boston (demo day was April) has seen 2/3 of their cohort get funded. It takes time to raise the rounds. I am confident as we gear up for our 2nd cohort we will get even better at getting our teams ready.

Do you have what it takes?

On that note – if you’re thinking about how an accelerator could benefit you, now is the time to apply to Founderfuel. Applications are open till Saturday. We begin the next session end of Feb.

To choose the best programs follow the money! Hope to see you in February.