In 2011, 255 tech startups were accepted into incubator programs around the world, including 45 that joined three local incubators – Dogpatch Labs, TechStars and the Venture Development Center.
There are many ways these startups hoped the programs would add value – validating a business model, finding more investors, providing a physical location, creating a network, etc. But which incubators are most effective in helping their startups accomplish the one thing almost all want – follow-on funding?
We use data from Seed-DB which has been collecting information on 145 seed accelerators and their companies. Startup databases like this are notoriously incomplete. So we had to search individual companies and plug gaps in funding reported. We believe we captured the major financings.
Note that the Venture Development Center is not a seed accelerator, focusing instead on launching high tech businesses. These types of startups raise larger rounds of financing, but are harder to get financed, than the consumer web and e-commerce companies which comprise many of the accelerators.
We looked at total raised, success rate and average and median raised. Here are the results:
Considering all of these measures, which incubator had the top performing Class of 2011? We’ll give you a hint: It is in either New York, Massachusetts or California. Stay tuned for Part 4 to find out which one.