Assessment criteria for seed accelerators in entrepreneurial project selections

Teresa Mariño-Garrido, Domingo García-Pérez-de-Lema and Antonio Duréndez

International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management, 2020, vol. 24, issue 1, 53-72

Abstract: This paper contributes to the literature on accelerators by filling the gap concerning the criteria used to select venture projects. Seed accelerators develop strict and rated assessment criteria for project selection that grants them objectivity and guarantees program success. This study uses a sample of 309 cases to analyse the criteria applied by an accelerator when selecting projects. Among these cases, 15 entered the accelerator stage. Our work first examines variables linked to the business project, such as the extent of innovation, extent of investability, speed of acceleration and extent of team consistency. It then assesses entrepreneurial skills such as negotiation, teamwork, creativity, communication and leadership. Our findings show that extent of team consistency and speed of acceleration are the most widely-used variables to assess a business project, while the most valued entrepreneurial skills are leadership followed by creativity. Furthermore, the project is more likely to enter the acceleration stage in the presence of higher team consistency and creativity.

Keywords: seed accelerator; entrepreneurship; start-up; venture capital. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.inderscience.com/link.php?id=105276 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ids:ijeima:v:24:y:2020:i:1:p:53-72

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management from Inderscience Enterprises Ltd
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sarah Parker ().